by Max Brand
As he rode, he looked down at the short, pricking ears of the stallion, at the length of the muscular arching of his neck. It seemed to him that the great horse was an engine to carry him over something more than mere miles, or mere mountains, but on to face destiny itself, in a fated country.
It seemed to Paradise Al that all his world had changed greatly. He had been playing all his life a game of many tricks, of danger, and he was still playing a game, but the stakes seemed more important—more important than money, for instance—for greater, loftier, nobler things.
XIV
He did not go straight in to Jumping Creek. No, that would be a folly, he felt. In Jumping Creek all the electric currents had to gather and pile up, all to be set in motion by his arrival. Something was going to happen. He hardly knew what. When he arrived in the town, deviltry of all sorts would be precipitated.
He took Sullivan off the trail, pulled the bridle from his head, and let the stallion graze. He had spent enough hours alone with the horse to have built up a close relationship, particularly in the hours of the night. To all animals, one hour of human companionship by night is worth a month of work in the daylight. Sullivan, as he strayed and grazed, repeatedly kept coming back to his master, lifting his head and staring around the horizon like a sentinel.
What he meant to Paradise Al was more than the tramp could have put into words. In fact, new emotions were growing up in him with every moment of this existence. The width of this horizon stretched his very mind until it ached, and the clear, sun-washed blue of the sky opened above him, as it were, a new conception of life. He was worried, he was vaguely but greatly distressed. Somehow he felt that a new system of values was impinging upon his mind, and that he would have to admit it before long. It was like preparing to put on a new soul. He could not tell what was going to happen to him.
Then these people with whom he was mixed—they were all different from those he had known in the old days. Winchell and Tucker, they were the last links with the old types. He could understand them, close, savage, bitter, cunning men. But the Draytons, they were another kind of being, sinister in their strength and their resolute courage, no doubt, but nothing shifty or tricky about them. The Pendletons, also, those lions among men, were of a new breed. He, Paradise Al, had foisted himself upon that great family. He shuddered with a strange mixture of joy and dread when he thought of them.
Finally, there was Molly Drayton.
He had put his ring on her finger. That was true. Although he had announced it as a claim, he felt with a sickening fall of the heart, that such a claim was too absurd. She, incapable of deceit or lying, as it seemed, might be willing to fulfill the foolish contract she had made with him, out of the very excess of contempt that she felt for him. But that willingness of hers would not be enough. Fate, itself, he felt, would put down its hand to prevent such a match between a girl like Molly Drayton and an unclean thing like Paradise Al.
For so the tramp saw himself, for the first time. As he remembered the white, still face of the girl, as she had looked down at his ring on her hand, Paradise Al dropped his face into both his hands and groaned aloud. His past life came over him, flickering as rapidly as the shadows that sweep under the wheel of a windmill.
He saw the city streets, the dark, twisting lanes among high buildings that fenced irregular ways through the smoky sky above. He saw the companions of his youth, the pale faces and the eyes filled with evil knowledge too great for their years. He saw back to his life in the foundling’s home, the mechanical charity, the dreadful monotony of the days, the sense of hopelessness. He saw his youthful days, his training by older wits in the ways of crime, and those first glorious years, as they had seemed to him, when figures celebrated in the underworld accepted him with respect, as a rising master. There had been an intoxicating sense of power in all of this. His wits were better than those of other men. His eye was calmer and clearer. His hand was more swift and subtle. He was not large, but his natural gifts were such that he was as an Achilles compared with his fellows.
Yet now, within the brief compass of a single week, he had stepped across the border into a strange new world wherein all of the old values were dissolving. Somehow it seemed to him that perhaps the greatest thing in the world was not strength of craft and cunning, or strength to slay, but strength to be brave and honest, strength to keep one’s soul so clean that all the world might look in upon it.
At last he started up, choking, dizzy, his heart racing. And he thought to himself bitterly, fiercely, slowly: I’ve trained myself for only one thing. I can raise hell. That’s all I can do. That’s the only way I can make people look up to me. So I’m going to raise hell again today. I’ll show them what I am, when I turn loose my guns.
He got the bridle back upon the head of the stallion, as this thought went through his mind, and then he climbed into the saddle again and let the horse wander gradually back along the trail to Jumping Creek.
Even before he came to the town, he saw that the situation was being built up for his arrival there. On the verge of the place three cowpunchers galloped past him, coming in, and, as they went by at full speed, he heard one of them exclaim: “There’s Sullivan! That’s Paradise Al Pendleton!”
All three turned their heads and stared back at him. They drew down their horses to a trot. Through the dust they raised, the three still looked back until a turn of the street cut them off.
Paradise Al, in his dark heart, smiled with gratification. It reminded him of the old days when he went down the street in New York, and the young chaps whispered together and looked after him with their eyes as big as moons, or when he had entered Dill Morgan’s place after Shorty Welch, the gunman, had hunted him down, only to die at his hands, and everyone in Dill Morgan’s stood up and drank in his honor.
Well, it was something like those good times to ride into Jumping Creek, to be pointed out and whispered about, except that there was a difference. For, coming past a corner house, he saw a tall old man standing in the vegetable garden, resting on a long-handled hoe, and the old man looked at him with eyes of calm knowledge and watched him down the street.
To save his soul, Paradise Al could not meet that glance. The cold, clear knowledge of that look pierced him to the soul. And how had the old man been able to look so easily through him? Why had there been such penetrating knowledge and disdain in that glance? Was it that here on the frontier a man’s fighting ability was respected as a blessing or despised as a curse, according to the way he used it?
He passed on into the heart of the town, aware of a growing murmur before him. When he came to the center of that murmur, which turned out to be the pounding feet of galloping horses, combined with human voices and the rattling of carriage wheels, he found himself in front of the biggest saloon in Jumping Creek, Chuck Lewis’s place.
He dismounted, found a place to tie the stallion at one end of the long hitching rack, and went in through the swinging doors. In front of the saloon there were a full score of idlers. The instant that Paradise Al entered the doors, he seemed to set up a draft that blew the others quickly in behind him.
He easily recognized them. They were the spectators. Even the West, it appeared, could furnish men who appeared in the sky like buzzards, prepared to fatten on the crimes, the follies, as well as the tragedies of other men.
But he had no opportunity to give his mind to these affairs. Once inside of the saloon, he saw that he was surrounded by danger in its most electric form—high-spirited men, armed all of them to the teeth, and only waiting for the fall of a pin, as it were, before they engaged in battle.
He saw the faces of Winchell and Tucker. Well, they hardly mattered, except that they were sure to join the opposition. He saw instantly, what mattered more—half a dozen of the Drayton clan, all looking at him askance and then fastening their eyes on a man among them who he had never seen before.
To balance the Draytons, there were several Pendletons. Big Ray Pendleton stood out among the ot
hers. Instantly he was at the side of Paradise Al, saying: “Mind yourself, Al. They’ve brought their ace of spades with ’em. And he’s going to try his hand on you . . . that’s Joe Drayton over there. The one with the beard. He’s their black sheep, but they can use him in a pinch like this. He’s going to start in on you. And then the whole gang will jump up. We’re ready for them. But mind that murderer, Joe Drayton. They’ve brought him here to get you. Hell is going to break loose. Tim Drayton has resigned his office as sheriff. He’ll die fighting to get you out of the way. It’s all about Molly. Watch yourself, Al, and bank on me.”
XV
Murderer Joe Drayton, the man of the black beard, had been called, and Paradise Al, with an eye to professional skill, probed the fellow to the soul and saw that he was worthy of his name.
But Murderer Joe was only one element in the crowding dangers of that moment. It was veritably like standing inside a powder barrel, with sparks flying, to stand in that barroom. It was a big place, where fifty cowpunchers at a time could change their pay for whiskey, and now men were crowded everywhere. Scores of them filled the place, and the air was filled with blue wreaths and clouds of cigarette smoke.
Death was certainly in the air, but, more than that, there was a strange gaiety. Men laughed loudly. Whiskey glasses were being filled rapidly up and down the bar. Men were not gathering Dutch courage, Paradise Al could guess, but simply celebrating a wild and famous occasion.
Well, when once the shooting began, that floor would run deep with blood. As for him, he saw his maneuver beforehand. He would fling himself slithering on the floor behind that table and shoot up through the legs of it. Then, as he made this decision, he remembered that tall old man with the clear, cold eye, who had looked through and through him.
If he were young and standing in the boots of Paradise Al, what would he do? What would Thomas J. Pendleton do? What would Timothy Drayton do? Allow the massacre to begin?
It seemed to Paradise Al that something cracked open in his soul and let in sudden light. He was a little dizzy with the new idea that burst upon him and for a moment he gripped the arm of Ray Pendleton and looked down to the floor.
“Don’t weaken, Al,” begged Ray Pendleton. “We’re all counting on you to fight like a man.”
Paradise Al smiled a little, and, looking up, he saw the fierce eyes of Blackbeard fixed upon him.
Straight through the crowd stepped Paradise Al and faced Murderer Joe Drayton. The latter squared slowly around at him. His eyes narrowed to gleaming points.
“You’re Joe Drayton?” said the tramp.
“Yeah, that’s my moniker,” admitted the big fellow.
“There seems to be some trouble in the air,” said Paradise Al, “between the Pendletons and your gang. Now, Joe, you and I both know that guns are going to start working before long. A lot of people will be hurt and that’s a pity. What I suggest is that you and I take on the fight for the rest of the boys. Let it lie between the pair of us. Does that sound good to you?”
A wild joy leaped into the eyes of Joe Drayton.
“Do you mean that, kid?” he said. “Where’d you like to start the ruction? D’you mean what you say?” He seemed to be clutching at the idea as at a joy too great to be possible.
“Here is as good a place as any,” said Paradise Al. “Stand back there at that end of the bar. I’ll stand here. That makes about ten yards. If you want it closer, we’ll grab ends of a handkerchief and have it out that way.”
Joe Drayton licked his lips with a red, pointed tongue. “Ten yards is all right for me, brother,” he said. “I see you’re a good, game kid, and I kind of hate to . . . Here, you, clear out and give us room. It’s between the kid and me. He’s asking for it.”
Many voices rose in a clamoring protest. Paradise Al raised his left hand, and that clamor was stilled. “Joe and I are having this little trouble out,” he said, “but we’ve got to learn something first. If we finish this fight, and a finish fight is what we’ll make it, there’s not to be any quarreling afterward. Not a single damn’ gun is to come out of leather, no matter how the fight turns out.”
Joe Drayton exclaimed: “The kid’s game, and he’s right! This little party ends the deal. You boys agree?”
No one spoke, but there was a nodding of heads, here and there. At the same time the men moved suddenly back against the wall. There was not much extra space, but two experts like Joe Drayton and Paradise Al would not fill the air with flying, random bullets.
They were facing one another, the left hand of Paradise Al resting on the bar, Joe Drayton opposite, leaning a little forward to get the weight on his toes, as though he were prepared to rush at his enemy. A smile of joyous anticipation kept the black beard of the killer writhing.
“You start, kid,” said Drayton.
“Somebody count to ten. We’ll shoot when he drops his hand,” suggested Paradise Al.
“Listen at him,” said Joe Drayton. “He’s been there before. Rudge, will you do the counting? Stand over there where we can both see you.”
Rudge Drayton obediently took his place at the side, midway between the pair, and, raising his right hand, he began to count: “One, two, three . . . ”
He had reached seven. As that count proceeded, a quiet and calm pleasure filled the heart of Paradise Al. He saw the twisting, tense faces of the others in the room. But it seemed to him that it hardly mattered how the battle turned out, for he, Paradise Al, had won a victory in the beginning, a victory over himself.
Then, at the count of seven, the swinging doors of the saloon opened. His own back was turned to them, and he only heard the squeak of their hinges, but he saw a frown come over the forehead of Joe Drayton, while a catch in breath echoed around the room.
“Molly,” said Joe Drayton. “This here ain’t any place for you.”
It was Molly Drayton herself who stepped suddenly before Paradise Al, her face set and her blue eyes shining with resolution.
“There’ll be no murder because of me,” she said. “There’ll be no reopening of the feud, either. Al, will you come away from here with me?”
He stood like a statue before her. But all the will went out of him and all the resolution. He felt her hand on his nerveless one. As she drew him, he turned with her and like a blind man allowed himself to be led out of the room.
The sun was in his eyes and he could hardly see what was before him in the street. Behind him, in the saloon, a dead silence held them all.
“You’re riding out of town with me,” said the cold, grim voice of the girl. “Get on Sullivan and come along.”
He obeyed as a small child will when it hears the voice of authority.
Now he was on the back of Sullivan, and vaguely he was aware of the girl riding a cream-colored mustang beside him and seeming very small and weak. Then the town was behind them and the sweeping brown hills were before, with the great mountains beyond going up incredibly high into the heavens. Only gradually his brain cleared and recovered from the shock that it had received.
“What’s the idea?” he asked. “And where are we going, Molly?”
“Anywhere. I don’t care where,” she said, “so long as it’s away from Jumping Creek and all those crazy men who are so ready to butcher one another.”
“What made you do it?” he asked. “Joe Drayton and I . . . we would have settled it. There wouldn’t have been any more trouble. That was agreed on.”
“Was it?” she said. “And how long do agreements last between honest Draytons and murdering Pendletons? Can you tell me that?”
He could feel the fierceness of the feud in her, and, looking down into her face, he said: “Molly, was one bit of your coming due to me? Do you care a rap about me?”
“About you?” she said, lifting her voice and her brows at the same time. “Why should I care about any Pendleton? I’d rather . . . ” She checked herself in the full flow of anger, adding bitterly: “But here I am. I’ve pledged myself, and the Draytons keep their wo
rd. Much good may you have of me. Much good.”
They had come into the entrance of a long ravine that reached deep into the hills, with precipitous slopes that went up on either side. There Paradise Al drew rein.
“You go back home, Molly,” he said. “You don’t have to come along with me. I give you back any promise you made. It was only a fool bet. That’s all.”
“I go back home . . . and you go back home,” she said. “And in twenty-four hours some Pendleton will shoot some Drayton, or the other way about, and the whole feud breaks out again. Oh, to think that trouble should come on us all on account of such a thing as you are.”
“You hate me, Molly,” he said.
“I hate you. There’s never a Pendleton that I haven’t hated,” she said.
He nodded his head. “I’ll do another thing for you, then,” said Paradise Al, and he wondered at his own voice speaking the words. “I’ll cut straight out of this part of the world. I’ll go East. You’ll see no more of me, Molly. With me out of the picture, there’ll be an end of the feud. Isn’t that the best thing?”
She frowned as she looked at him. “What sort of a bluff are you making now?” she asked. “What d’you mean by it, Al Pendleton?”
He smiled just a little, because she had used the name in speaking to him. “I mean what I say,” he replied.
“You mean that you’ll go away and stay away?”
“I mean just that.”
“I don’t believe it!” she said. “It’s not in you. You’ve made yourself a great man around here by riding Sullivan.”
Again his voice amazed him as he said: “That was only a trick. That devil, Rourke, had planted two needles in the saddle. I got them out, and Sullivan became as gentle as a house cat at once.”
“Are you telling me this?” she said. She held out her hand. “Al, are you a square-shooter, after all?”
