by Max Brand
Elizabeth said nothing. She kept on paying his bills, and she kept on cutting down his interest in the old Cornish Ranch, until at the present time he had only a fingertip hold. Root and branch, the valley and all that was in it belonged to Elizabeth Cornish. She was proud of her possession, though she seldom talked of her pride. Nevertheless Vance knew, and smiled. It was amusing, because, after all, what she had done, and all her work, would revert to him at her death. Until that time, why should he care in whose name the ranch remained so long as his bills were paid? He had not worked, but, in recompense, he had remained young. Elizabeth had labored all her youth away. At forty-nine he was ready to begin the most important part of his career. At sixty his sister was a withered old ghost of a woman. Her strength was in her eye alone.
No wonder that he fell into a pleasant reverie. When Elizabeth died, he would set in some tennis courts beside the house, buy some blooded horses, cut the road wide and deep to let the world come up Bear Creek Valley, and retire to the life of a country gentleman.
His sister’s voice cut into his musing. She had two tones. One might be called her social register. It was smooth, gentle—the low-pitched and controlled voice of a gentlewoman. The other voice was hard and sharp. It could pierce the clamor of the roundup with trenchant orders; it could drive hard and cold across a desk and bring businessmen to an understanding that here was a mind, not a woman.
At present she used her latter tone. Vance Cornish came into a shivering consciousness that she was sitting beside him. He turned his head slowly. It was always a shock to come out of one of his pleasant dreams, and see that worn, hollow-eyed, impatient face. He had had his pleasure in life, and his sister had paid for it. He forced himself to smile as he met her eye.
“Are you forty-nine, Vance?”
“I’m not fifty, at least,” he countered.
She remained imperturbable, looking him over. He had come to notice that in the past half dozen years, his best smiles often failed to mellow her expression. He felt that something disagreeable was coming, and he ran off easily at a tangent to turn the conversation.
“Why did Cornwall run away this morning? I hoped to take him on a trip.”
“He had business to do.”
His diversion had been a distinct failure, and had been turned against him. For she went on: “Which leads to what I have to say. You’re going back to New York in a few days, I suppose?”
“No, my dear. I haven’t been across the water for two years.”
“Paris?”
“Brussels. A little less grace . . . a little more spirit.”
“Which means money.”
“A few thousand, only. I’ll be back by fall.”
“Do you know that you’ll have to mortgage your future for that money, Vance?”
He blinked at her, but maintained his smile under fire, courageously. “Come, come! Things are booming. You told me yesterday what you’d clean up on the last bunch of Herefords.”
“Well?”
When she folded her hands, she was most dangerous, he knew. And now the bony fingers linked and she shrugged the shawl more closely around her shoulders. After a life of wild, hard labor in a rough country with rough men, it was strange to see these prim, old-maidish habits settle on her as the years slipped by.
“We’re partners, aren’t we?” Vance smiled.
“Partners, yes. You have one share and I have a thousand. But . . . you don’t want to sell out your final claim, I suppose?”
His smile froze. “Eh?”
“If you want to get those few thousands, Vance, you have nothing to put up for them except your last shreds of property. That’s why I say you’ll have to mortgage your future for money from now on.”
“But . . . how does it all come about?”
He had not a very manly way of letting business appear a complete mystery to him when he was driven to the wall. It usually made his sister halt under the impression that she was taking an unfair advantage. But today she merely flushed a little deeper.
“I’ve warned you. I’ve been warning you for twenty-five years, Vance.”
Once again he attempted to turn her. He always had the impression that, if he became serious, deadly serious for ten consecutive minutes with his sister, he would be ruined. He kept on with his semi-jovial tone.
“There are two arts, Elizabeth. One is making money and the other is spending it. You’ve mastered one and I’ve mastered the other. Which balances things, don’t you think?”
She did not melt; he gestured down to the farm land.
“Watch that wave of wind, Elizabeth.”
A gust struck the scattering of aspens, and turned up the silver of the dark-green leaves. The breeze rolled across the trees in a long, rippling flash of light. But Elizabeth did not look down. Her glance was fixed on the changeless snow of Mount Discovery’s summit.
“As long as you have something to spend, spending is a very important art, Vance. But when the purse is empty it’s a bit useless, it seems to me.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to mortgage my future. As a matter of fact, I suppose I could borrow what I want on my prospects.”
A veritable Indian yell, instantly taken up and prolonged by a chorus of similar shouts, cut off the last of his words. Around the corner of the house shot a blood bay stallion, red as the red of iron under the blacksmith’s hammer, with a long, black tail snapping and flaunting behind him, his ears flattened, his beautiful vicious head outstretched in an effort to tug the reins out of the hands of the rider. Failing in that effort, he leaped into the air like a steeplechaser and pitched down upon stiffened forelegs.
The shock rippled through the body of the rider and came to his head with a snap that jerked his chin down against his breast. The stallion rocked back on his hind legs, whirled, and then flung himself deliberately on his back. A sufficiently cunning maneuver—first stunning the enemy with a blow and then crushing him before his senses returned. But he landed on nothing save hard gravel. The rider had whipped out of the saddle and stood poised, his hat jammed, hard, on his head and the wind curling the brim—a glorious specimen of young manhood, straight as an aspen, strong as the trunk of a silver spruce and now flushed and joyous with the battle.
The fighting horse, a little shaken by the impact of his fall, nevertheless whirled with cat-like agility to his feet—a beautiful thing to watch. As he brought his forequarters off the earth, he lunged at the rider with open mouth. A side-step that would have done credit to a pugilist sent the youngster swerving past that danger. He leaped to the saddle at the same time that the blood bay came to a stand.
The chorus in full cry was around the house, four or five excited cowpunchers waving their sombreros and yelling for horse or rider according to the gallantry of the fight. And it was, indeed, a battle royal.
The bay was in the air more than he was on the ground, eleven or twelve hundred pounds of might writhing, snapping, bolting, halting, sun-fishing with devilish cunning, dropping out of the air on one stiff foreleg with an accompanying sway to one side that gave the rider the effect of a cudgel blow at the back of the head and then a whip-snap to part the vertebrae. Whirling on his hind legs, and again flinging himself desperately on the ground, only to fail, come to his feet with the clinging burden once more maddeningly in place, and go again through a maze of fence-rowing and sun-fishing until suddenly he straightened out and bolted down the slope like a runaway locomotive on a downgrade. A terrifying spectacle, but the rider sat erect, with one arm raised high above his head in triumph, and his yell trailing off behind him. From a running gait the stallion fell into a smooth pace—a true wild pacer, his hoofs beating the ground with the force and speed of pistons and hurling himself forward with incredible strides. Horse and rider lurched out of sight among the silver spruce.
“By the Lord, wonderful!” cried Vance Cornish.
He heard a stifled cry beside him, a cry of infinite pain.
“Is . . . is it over?”
And there sat Elizabeth the Indomitable, Elizabeth the Fearless, with her face buried in her hands like a girl of sixteen.
“Of course it’s over,” said Vance, wondering profoundly.
She seemed to dread to look up. “And . . . Terence?”
“He’s all right. Ever hear of a horse that could get that young wildcat out of the saddle? He clings as if he had claws. But . . . where did he get that red devil?”
She straightened, slowly letting her hands fall, and looked down the slope with eyes half frightened, half wistful. For the moment she was young, beautiful. Vance Cornish bit his lip.
“Terence ran him down . . . in the mountains . . . somewhere.” she answered, speaking as one who had only half heard the question. “Two months of constant trailing to do it, I think. But, oh, you’re right. The horse is a devil. And sometimes I think . . .” She stopped, shuddering.
Vance had returned to the ranch only the day before after a long absence. More and more, after he had been away, he found it difficult to get in touch with things on the ranch. Once he had been a necessary part of the inner life. Now he was on the outside. Terence and Elizabeth were a perfectly completed circle in themselves.
Chapter Two
“If Terry worries you like this,” suggested her brother kindly, “why don’t you forbid these pranks?”
She looked at him as if in surprise. “Forbid Terry?” she echoed, and then smiled. Decidedly this was her first tone, a soft tone that came from deep in her throat. Instinctively Vance contrasted it with the way she had spoken to him. But it was always this way when Terry was mentioned. For the first time he saw it clearly. It was amazing how blind he had been.
“Forbid Terence?” Elizabeth repeated. “Vance, that devil of a horse is part of his life. He was on a hunting trip when he saw Le Sangre . . .”
“Good Lord, did they call the horse that?”
“A French-Canadian was the first to discover him and he gave the name. And he’s the color of blood, really. Well, Terence saw Le Sangre on a hilltop against the sky, and he literally went mad. Actually he struck out on foot with his rifle and lived in the country and never stopped walking until he wore down Le Sangre, somehow, and brought him back hobbled . . . just skin and bones, and Terence not much more. Now Le Sangre is himself again and he and Terence have a fight . . . like that . . . everyday. I dream about it . . . the most horrible nightmares.”
“And you don’t stop it?”
“My dear Vance, how little you know Terence. You couldn’t tear that horse out of his life without breaking his heart. I know!”
“So you suffer, day by day?”
“I’ve done very little else all my life,” said Elizabeth gravely. “And I’ve learned to bear pain.”
He swallowed. Also, he was beginning to grow irritated. He had never before had a talk with Elizabeth that contained so many reefs that threatened shipwreck. He returned to the gist of their conversation rather too bluntly.
“But to continue, Elizabeth, any banker would lend me money on my prospects.”
“You mean the property that will come to you when I die?”
He used all his power, but he could not meet her glance. In spite of himself his eyes were forced down to the flashing aspens and to the leisurely silver trail of Bear Creek among the spruces. “You know that’s a nasty way to put it, Elizabeth.”
“Dear Vance”—she sighed—“a great many people say that I’m a hard woman. I suppose I am. And I like to look facts squarely in the face. Your prospects begin with my death, of course.”
He had no answer, but bit his lip nervously and wished the ordeal would come to an end.
“Vance,” she went on, “I’m glad to have this talk with you. It’s something you have to know. Of course I’ll see that during my life or my death you’ll be provided for. But as for your main prospects, do you know where they are?”
“Well?”
She was needlessly brutal about it, but, as she had told him, her education had been one of pain.
“Your prospects are down there by the river on the back of Le Sangre.”
Vance Cornish gasped.
“I’ll show you what I mean, Vance. Come along.”
The moment she rose some of her age fell from her. Her carriage was erect. Her step was still full of spring and decision, and she carried her head like a queen. In spite of his confusion of mind and his worry Vance admired her. True steel tells in the rapier and true blood in a woman.
She led the way into the house. It was a big, solid two-story building that the mightiest wind could not shake. Henry Cornish had merely founded the house, just as he had founded the ranch; the main portion of the work had been done by his daughter. And as they passed through, her stern old eye rested peacefully on the deep, shadowy vistas, and her foot fell with just pride on the splendid rising sweep of the staircase. They passed into the roomy vault of the upper hall and went down to the end. She took out a big key from her pocket and fitted it into the lock, and then Vance dropped his hand on her arm. His voice lowered.
“You’ve made a mistake, Elizabeth. This is Father’s room.”
Ever since his death it had been kept unchanged, and practically unentered save for an occasional rare day of work to keep it in order. Now she nodded, and resolutely turned the key and swung the door open. Vance went in with an exclamation of wonder. It was quite changed from the solemn old room and the brown, varnished woodwork that he remembered. Cream-tinted paint now made the walls cool and fresh. The solemn engravings no longer hung above the bookcases. And the bookcases themselves had been replaced with built-in shelves pleasantly filled with rich bindings, black and red and deep yellow-browns. The old-fashioned mantel no longer topped the fireplace. Mounted heads were here and there. A tall cabinet stood open at one side filled with rifles and revolvers and shotguns of every description, and another cabinet was loaded with fishing apparatus. The stiff-backed chairs had given place to comfortable monsters of easy lines, flowing close to the floor. There were two tall floor lamps and a desk lamp all with shades of light yellow with meager tints of rose showing through the silk lining. Vance Cornish, as one in a dream, peered here and there.
“God bless us!” he kept repeating. “God bless us! But where’s there a trace of Father?”
“I left it out,” said Elizabeth huskily, “because this room is meant for . . . but let’s go back. Do you remember that day twenty-four years ago when we took Jack Hollis’s baby?”
“When you took it,” he corrected. “I disclaim all share in the idea.”
“Thank you,” she answered proudly. “At any rate, I took the boy and called him Terence Colby.”
“Why that name,” muttered Vance, “I never could understand.”
“Haven’t I told you? No, and I hardly know whether to trust even you with the secret, Vance. But you remember we argued about it, and you said that blood would out . . . that the boy would turn out wrong . . . that before he was twenty-five he would have shot a man?”
“Dimly. I believe I said some of those things.”
“You said them all, Vance. You said more. You reminded me of the Jukes family . . . you tried to prove that it’s the blood that makes the man, and I held out that environment is the thing.”
“I believe the talk ran like that.”
“Well, Vance, I started out with a theory . . . but the moment I had that baby in my arms it became a matter of theory, plus, and chiefly plus. I kept remembering what you had said, and I was afraid. That was why I worked up the Colby idea.”
“That’s easy to see.”
“It wasn’t so easy to do. But I heard of the last of an old Virginia family who had died of consumption in Arizona. I traced his family. He was the last of it. Then it was easy to arrange a little story . . . Terence Colby had married a girl in Arizona, died shortly after . . . the girl died, also . . . and I took the baby. Nobody can disprove what I say. There’s not a living soul who knows that Terence is the son of Jack H
ollis . . . except you and me.”
“How about the woman I got the baby from?”
“I bought her silence until fifteen years ago. Then she died, and now Terry is convinced that he is the last representative of the Colby family.”
She laughed with excitement and beckoned him out of the room and into another—Terry’s room, farther down the hall. She pointed to a large photograph of a solemn-faced man on the wall.
“You see that?”
“Who is it?”
“I got it when I took Terry to Virginia last winter . . . to see the old family estate and go over the ground of the historic Colbys.” She laughed again, happily. “Terry was wild with enthusiasm. He read everything he could lay his hands on about the Colbys. Discovered the year they landed in Virginia . . . how they fought in the Revolution . . . how they fought and died in the Civil War. Oh, he knows every landmark in the history of his family. Of course, I encouraged him.”
“I know.” Vance chuckled. “Whenever he gets in a pinch I’ve heard you say . . . ‘Terry, what should a Colby do?’ And I’ve heard you say a dozen times . . . ‘Terry, no matter what else may have been true of them, the Colbys have always been gentlemen.’”
Vance laughed uproariously.
“And,” cut in Elizabeth, “you must admit that it has worked. There isn’t a prouder, gentler, cleaner-minded boy in the world than Terry. Not blood. It’s the blood of Jack Hollis. But it’s what he thinks himself to be that counts. And now, Vance, admit that your theory is exploded.”
He shook his head. “Terry will do well enough. But wait till the pinch comes. You don’t know how he’ll turn out when the rub comes. Then blood will tell.”
She shrugged her shoulders angrily. “You’re simply being perverse now, Vance. At any rate, that picture is one of Terry’s old ‘ancestors’, Colonel Vincent Colby, of prewar days. Terry has discovered family resemblances, of course . . . same black hair, same black eyes, and a great many other things.”
“But suppose he should ever learn the truth?” murmured Vance.
