by Max Brand
“He ain’t done a day’s work to break that hoss,” he distinctly heard someone say. “Claims to be hypnotizin’ him, or something like that.”
“Maybe he’s hypnotized Sullivan, but, if he tries to ride him, Sullivan will hypnotize him right back,” was the answer.
Paradise Al hastily turned toward the barn, concealing a smile, and came out carrying the saddle and the bridle. He climbed through the fence and whistled, but Sullivan was already coming up at a trot. What horse will not come to a whistle, when from the same hand it has been fed good barley or oats during every visit for seven days? There was another handful of oats to reward his coming on this occasion. While he munched it, gathering it from the palm of the tramp with a dexterous pair of velvety lips, an angry murmur ran down the line of spectators.
“Why do you waste time, Al?” demanded Thomas J. Pendleton.
Sullivan himself turned his big, bony head and stared at the speaker, while he munched the last of the oats. Then he lowered his head to sniff at the saddle, while Paradise Al answered: “It’s just a way of saying hello to Sullivan. A handful of oats is nothing to a horse that’s going to carry you six miles or so.”
That was the distance to the Drayton place. Next, the tramp swung the saddle onto the back of the horse with a decisive flop, and reached fearlessly under to get at the cinches.
“That’s all right,” said Thomas J. Pendleton rather too loudly. “Even that red rascal, Rourke, can do that much with Sullivan. The riding is the thing.”
Paradise Al was annoyingly slow and careful in the drawing up of the cinches and in the arrangement of the stirrups, which he affected to find not quite the right length. Finally, when he was satisfied, he said: “In case old Sullivan takes it into his head to run a bit, just open the gate, will you, somebody?”
The gate was opened. Paradise Al settled his hat more firmly on his head, thrust a foot in the stirrup, and swung himself awkwardly up into the saddle. In fact, his weight dropped into it—he fumbled for and found the other stirrup—and the terrible Sullivan merely pricked his ears and switched his tail.
“The thunder’ll start pretty quick,” said one of the cowpunchers. “And Satan help that tenderfoot then.”
Paradise Al ran his eyes down the line of faces and was content. Never an actor thrilled with more pleasure in holding an audience spellbound than did this thief as he saw the stern, set, resolved faces of those brown men and women of the West. His own knavery delighted him all the more. It had only been a trick, a mere quiet bit of experimenting, that had earned for him this triumph. To be sure, he had once measured his length hard on the ground, and he had seen the front hoofs of the stallion dropping at his head like a pair of ponderous sledge-hammers. But that moment was forgotten in his moment of triumph. He gathered the reins. He slapped the stallion cheerfully on the flank. “Get up, old fellow,” he said.
In response, Sullivan did not hurl himself at the sky. Neither did he fling himself backward upon the ground, nor indulge in one of his outbursts of snaky twisting and rope snapping that had unseated so many an expert rider. He merely switched his tail and walked slowly forward toward the gate.
A whisper, a murmur, a voice, a roar of excitement and applause came from the watchers. Al saw the face of Thomas J. Pendleton, crimson with joy; he saw the old gentleman shaking a burly fist in the air. He saw hats waved, and, through all of that commotion, Sullivan walked calmly on.
He could do better than that. Every night for five nights the tramp had ridden him in the pasture and began to know his gaits and paces very well. So he put him to a trot. And what a trot it was. The powerful fetlock joints gave whole inches, like hydraulic shock absorbers of infinite delicacy, self-adjusting. Even Paradise Al could sit that trot and hardly move in the saddle. Then he brought the stallion to a canter that swept him around the corral in a moment.
He headed Sullivan straight out over the field at full gallop, with the wind suddenly fierce in his face, and the ground shooting back beneath him as it shoots beneath a running train.
He turned the stallion in a wide loop and brought him back. When he stopped the sorrel again, the Pendletons swarmed about him with worship in their faces.
“Albert, I’m going to confess that I’ve been doubting you,” said Thomas J. Pendleton. “I’m going to confess that I was afraid that you’d shame us. I’m taking this moment to make an apology. I want you to forgive me, and forgive the rest of us, because we haven’t had faith.”
“Why, that’s quite all right,” said Paradise Al. “I know how it is. You never can tell what a tool’s worth until you try to make it cut.”
He was glad that he had thought of saying that. He heard a murmur of approbation in answer to his speech. Only, looking among the faces, he saw Sally Pendleton watching him with a cold expression of doubt.
She has a mind of her own, that girl, he said to himself. Then, to Ray: “Will you ride over with me, Ray?”
“To the Draytons?” asked Ray Pendleton.
“Yes.”
Ray looked to his father.
“Trouble may come of it,” said Thomas. “There generally is trouble, when the Draytons lose out. They’re not the kind to be put down and lie still and take it. But you’ll have to take your chances. You went with him before. You can go with him again.”
“Why, if it comes to that, I’ll ride over by myself,” said Paradise Al. “I’d rather, except for the company. I’ll ride over and then swing back toward town. Anybody who’s thirsty, meet me there for a drink. Is that a go?”
“Steady,” said Thomas J. Pendleton. “D’you mean that you’ll go to that nest of tigers alone?”
“No, not alone,” answered Paradise Al, “if one of you will give me a gun.”
Twenty guns gleamed in twenty hands, thrusting forward, butt first, toward the hand of Paradise.
“Take this,” said a single voice.
He took the nearest one and knew that the owner of it felt honored by the choice. Odd people, these Pendletons. He looked them over with a strangely guilty sense, knowing that he had been taken suddenly into the heart of the clan and that every one of these men was willing to die for the new member.
“It may be better if he goes alone,” said Thomas J. Pendleton. “The Draytons know that one man is one man. But whenever they see two Pendletons together, they’re apt to think that it’s a whole crowd and start a war. Albert, I’m going to meet you in town, but you can’t pay for any drinks today. We’ll all meet you in town, every man of us, and hear how the Draytons took the bitter pill. There’s only one thing I have to say.”
“Yes?” said Paradise respectfully.
“When you were there before, you made some foolish remarks to Molly Drayton. You won’t remember them today, I hope?”
Paradise Al drew in his breath slowly. He had never quite rubbed the picture of the girl out of his mind. It grew burningly bright before his eyes now.
“You know,” he said, “she damned me with her eyes, the last time that I was over. I don’t think that Pendletons ought to take a damning quietly, even when it’s only in the eyes, do you?”
He smiled at his “uncle”, and his “uncle”, with an answering smile, shrugged his shoulders and made a gesture that left the matter to the disposal of the rider’s good sense.
So he turned the head of Sullivan toward the outer road and heard a cheer behind him. When he came to the gate leading to the road, he saw that the person who had run ahead to open it for him was none other than Sally, and she stood there with the heavy panel flung open behind her and looked steadily up to him, saying: “Al Jones, or Brown, or whoever you are, if you want to keep yourself and the rest of us out of a devilish lot of trouble, drop Molly Drayton. There’s nothing but poison there for you.”
XIII
There was nothing particularly soothing about the knowledge that Sally Pendleton saw through him and knew perfectly well that he was a mere pretender to the name of her family. There was nothing agreeable, lik
ewise, in her prophecy that the best thing for him was to keep away from Molly Drayton.
He went on down the road, shaking his head from time to time, and vainly struggling with the problem. The stallion went along easily on a loose rein, as though there were nothing whatever on his back and as though he were picking his own way across country, meanwhile looking out for all manner of possible dangers on the way. Now and then he paused, with a forehoof raised like a fox, while he sniffed the wind or eyed a grove of trees. Once, he turned halfway around and looked back down the road at two riders who were slowly overtaking them. Always his head was high to study the wind, or lowered to sniff at trails on the ground. It was very plain that he had not forgotten the earlier days when he was the wild leader of a wild herd. He went across country with the caution of a beast of prey.
Paradise Al was beginning to feel that the horse was both a means of travel and a guide and guard while traveling, when the two riders came up, one on either side of him. Their faces were not welcome. They were the detectives who had worked so industriously for the railroad, Jay Winchell and that same Harry Tucker who had beaten his fist against the face of the tramp with such pleasure and energy.
“Hello, boys,” said Paradise, undisturbed, to all appearances, by the arrival of this pair of enemies. He was taking note, at the same time, that one was on either side. They did not know, perhaps, some of the little gun tricks of which he was capable.
“Hello,” said Winchell. “You rolled us, finally, did you, you worthless bum, you?”
“You don’t think that you put anything over on us, do you?” added Tucker. “You don’t think that we swaller this gag about you being a Pendleton, do you?”
“Why, Harry,” said Paradise Al, “are you accusing me of playing a role?”
He shook his head in mild rebuke at Tucker, and the latter growled like a dog.
“We’re gonna get our teeth into you,” said Tucker. “Went and got us rolled, did you? We’ll get our teeth into you for that, brother.”
“They fired you, finally, did they?” asked the boy. “I’m glad to hear that, and sorry to hear it, too.”
“Why, damn you,” began Tucker, his voice rising and his face reddening.
“Shut up, Harry,” said Winchell. “Let’s get at his idea. You’re glad and sorry?” he repeated.
“Glad that they kicked you out before you made any more trouble for poor bums coming along the railroad in this direction,” said Paradise. “But I’m sorry that you’re fired, because that means that I may have to go a long distance to find you, when I’m tired of staying around here.”
“You’re not staying around here? You’re not a Pendleton? You admit that?” barked Tucker.
“Certainly I admit it to you two.”
“You got an idea we like you so good that we wouldn’t spread the news anywhere. Is that it?”
“It doesn’t make any difference what you say about me,” said Paradise. “The more you talk, the more these people will laugh at you. They’re a queer lot around here. They know the difference between a talking man and a barking dog, for instance.”
“We’re barking dogs, are we?” demanded Winchell. “But go on and tell us why you’ll be sorry?”
“Because,” said Paradise Al, “when I’m through with my place here with the Pendletons, I’m going to look you both up. You, Winchell, I’ll let off easily. But you’re a dead man, Tucker. You are really a dead man. I’m going to kill you. And I want you to know what I intend to do. You may get more taste out of the thing, if you know it in advance.”
“Thanks,” said Tucker. Then his rage came roaring out of his throat: “I’m gonna bash your head in for you, and right now!”
“Will you?” asked Paradise Al. “You’re going to beat me up, Tucker?”
“Yes, and right now.”
“Shake hands on that, and then you can start,” said Paradise, and he actually extended his slender brown hand with a smile toward the other.
Tucker hesitated, cursed, then grasped the hand. But it was like laying hold upon an electric wire, for the forefinger of Paradise Al touched and pressed down upon a nerve in the back of Tucker’s hand, and that pressure sent an icy wave of numbness shooting up through the wrist and forearm of the ex-detective.
He had intended, as a matter of fact, to crush that slender hand in his own more massive grip. But now, with a grunt of pain and rage, he tore his hand away from the deadly pressure. It was still numb. He would have reached for a gun, but he knew beforehand that a gun would slide out of his nerveless fingers. Raging inwardly, he saw the faint, calm smile of the tramp regarding him, mastering him.
“What the devil’s the matter with you, Harry?” asked Winchell of his companion.
“He tricked me,” said Tucker furiously, massaging his still tingling hand.
“Mind you, Tucker,” said the tramp, “I’m going to hunt you down, when I’m ready for the job. And when I find you, I’m going to put you under the ground.”
With that, he touched the tender, sensitive flank of the stallion with his heel, and Sullivan galloped down the road with a long-reaching stride.
The two did not follow. Something had happened to them during that brief interview that was highly depressing to their spirits, and they merely stared after the slender rider, realizing that not once did he turn his head to mark whether or not they were unlimbering rifles to shoot after him.
Very well did Paradise understand what must be going on in their minds, and he laughed to himself as he galloped on his way.
He pulled the stallion down to a trot and at that gait he at last approached the house of Drayton.
Even in the distance he saw that an audience waited for him. There were men lingering about the house; there were others nearer the barn; two or three were in the pasture, overlooking the horses there. As he came nearer, there was a sudden stir that brought the entire body of people near the house itself. From that wide-spreading shack of a place, out came women and children. Still from afar, he thought that he could recognize Molly Drayton, almost lost among the others. He laughed to himself, but felt, as he laughed, the cold leap of fear, something that went to his heart like the bright glinting of a sword.
They were drawn up in a wide arc as he finally drew the rein of the stallion before them. A silent group they were, and every face hard and cold with anger and astonishment. Only Rourke, like a red pestilence, leered, open-mouthed, with a mixture of wonder and rage, fear and malice. There was a devil in that small man.
Molly Drayton? She seemed actually less moved than any of the others. But her father, Timothy Drayton, the sheriff, stood close to her, with his big, strong arm cast about her as though to protect her from any coming evil.
“I’m to stay on the back of Sullivan for ten minutes now. Is that correct?” said Paradise Al as he lifted his hat to the crowd.
“Ten minutes?” said Tim Drayton in a harsh, grating voice. “I reckon that you’ve been on him ten minutes, all right. I reckon that you’ve won him, Pendleton.”
Paradise Al slipped to the ground. Very frail and unimportant he looked as he stood before those massive men, those silent, staring women.
He bowed toward Molly Drayton. “I hope that you feel it’s a lucky day, Molly?” he said.
Tim Drayton burst out: “Young fellow, a joke’s a joke. We can all laugh at it. You got the horse, and that oughta be enough. If you begin to talk about the fool bet you made with Molly here . . . ”
“Was it a fool bet, Molly?” asked the tramp.
She shook her head. “I’ve given my word,” she answered, “and I intend to keep it.”
A groan came from every throat about her.
“Keep it?” shouted her father. “Are you plumb crazy, Molly, darling? I’d rather see you . . . ”
She stepped from the shelter of her father’s arm suddenly and stood before Paradise Al. “Now, say what you want,” she commanded fearlessly.
“A claim on you,” he said intently. “I f
ile a claim that can’t be jumped, with this ring, Molly. Is that right?”
“You can do as you please,” she said. She stepped still closer to him. With her voice lowered so that only the murmur of it, not the words, could reach the ears of the others standing so near, she said: “Paradise Al, or whatever your name is, you know what will happen if you take me at my word. There’ll be murder in the air. If you have half an eye, you can see it and feel it now. The men won’t let you take me. You knew that before. There’ll be a killing before that happens.”
He answered her, aloud: “If I take you, your tribe will come for my scalp. That’s all right, Molly. What I want from the Draytons is their scalps and you. If there is killing, I’ll try to do my share. But here’s my claim, and here’s how I file it.”
It was a man’s ring, a broad band with a flat-faced emerald set in it. This he slipped upon her finger, and raised her hand to his lips. Then he stepped back.
“You understand, Molly,” he said. “If I send for you, you come. I’ll choose my time. The rest of you, good luck, and may you shoot straight when we meet again.” He climbed into the saddle.
The high, whining voice of Rourke was crying out: “Stop him! If he gets away this time, you’ll all have a chance to groan about it later on. Stop him! Stop him!”
There was a snarling answer from the throat of Timothy Drayton, the sheriff. Molly Drayton herself, her face as pale as stone, stood motionlessly, looking down at the ring on her hand, and that was the last that Paradise Al saw of them as he turned the head of Sullivan and rode back down the trail toward Jumping Creek.
It had been bad enough to leave the two ex-detectives behind his back. It was far worse, now, to have the assembled Draytons behind him.
He knew that the thunder and the lightning had gathered over his head. He knew that the least word, the smallest wrong gesture, would be enough to draw the thunderbolts down on him and blast him. Shudders chased up his spine. He was weak with fear, but, as he had done with the two on the road, so he did now, and went away toward Jumping Creek without looking back.
