by Max Brand
It was characteristic of him that he did not wince from the tight moment. Like any confidence man, he imposed a vast trust in the control of his facial expression, and now he climbed straight up the steps of the verandah and confronted the pair.
They were both burly. Except for their complexions, they might have passed as brothers. Each man sunk his head a little and looked up with the expression of a surly bulldog that wants to bite.
“My friends,” said Rory in his deep, genial voice, “you seem to know me. Is that correct?”
There was no answer, only the steady staring.
“My name is Pendleton,” he said, “and I don’t think that I know yours.”
“Say,” said the darker of the pair, “why start throwing that kind of a bluff?”
“Bluff?” echoed Pendleton gently, but feeling relieved, for it seemed certain they were not really trailing him. If they had even a suspicion of a clue against him, they would strive to refresh it by following his own invitation and opening up a conversation. They could not be so subtle as to lead him on by pretending indifference.
“But why should I know you, gentlemen?” he added.
“Pendleton,” said one of them, “you’re Al Pendleton’s father, ain’t you?”
“Why, yes, of course,” he said a little surprised. “But what has that to do with my knowing you? Are you friends of my son?” He said it with the most amiable of smiles, and at this one of them laughed in a sneering, low-pitched voice like a growl.
“Friends of his? We’re Jay Winchell and Harry Tucker, if you wanna know.”
“Jay Winchell and Harry Tucker?” repeated Pendleton. “Well, let me see . . . let me see. I’ve heard those names before. Winchell and Tucker . . . why, those are the names of the two railroad detectives with whom Al had a little run-in when he arrived here in Jumping Creek.”
“I punched his face for him, and then we chucked him into jail,” said Tucker briefly. “And what’s more, I ain’t sorry for it. Not even if the railroad junked us. What I mean . . . I think that it’d be safer for the world if he was behind bars, and now you know what I think.”
“So?” said Pendleton with no hint of anger. He even smiled forgiveness down upon them, and then he shook his head.
“I never carry tales,” he said. “There’s something in my nature that keeps me from carrying tales. I won’t repeat what you said.”
“You don’t hurt no feelings here if you do,” declared Tucker, but without quite the assurance of his companion. “He’s one up on us, that’s all. The next time we may be one up on him. What I mean to say is, we ain’t hiding our heads to keep away from trouble.”
It was then that inspiration came over Pendleton as he looked down at the two brutal, not overly intelligent faces. “My friends . . . ” he began.
“We’re no friends of yours,” said Winchell savagely.
“Shut up, Jay,” broke in Tucker. “Leave the old bird talk, will you? Words ain’t bullets, I guess.”
“If they were, I’d turn them the other way,” said Pendleton, “because I want to ask you fellows how you’re employed just now.”
“We’re employed just now being unemployed, and what the hell is that to you?” asked Winchell aggressively.
“If you’ll think things over,” said Pendleton, “you’ll see that you gain nothing by being abusive. And the fact that I’m continuing to talk with you might mean to you that perhaps the three of us might combine to a very good purpose.”
“We might combine, might we?” said Tucker.
“Not with me,” said Winchell, shaking his head until his cheeks quivered.
“Hold on,” interrupted Tucker. “Are you talking money or air?”
“I’m talking fortunes, my lad,” said Pendleton calmly.
They stared at him, and Tucker muttered: “He means it. There’s wool on this bird. Pendleton, what’s on your mind?”
“I’m approaching you two gentlemen,” said Pendleton, “on a very delicate matter . . . a matter of confidence that would be ruin to me if my connection with it were discovered. Do you realize what that means to me?”
Said Winchell: “I never yet heard a guy talk about what his reputation meant to him when his reputation was worth a damn. And that’s straight from the shoulder, if you know what I mean.”
“I understand, my dear fellow,” said the other. “Perhaps if we had a chance to chat this thing over, you might see that I can speak just as straight from the shoulder as you can.”
“This here matter, as you call it, what’s the size of it?” asked Tucker curiously.
“Enough to interest all three of us,” said Pendleton. “That is, if you two men can hold your tongues, take a chance, and don’t mind danger that may be very great. On the other hand, there may not be any danger.”
“It sounds to me like a frame,” declared Winchell.
Suddenly Pendleton smiled and said: “Brother, there you have it. I’m proposing to let you in on the prettiest and the simplest plant that you ever heard of.”
Tucker literally licked his lips. “I got an idea that we could talk to Pendleton,” he said to Winchell.
“I’m getting the same idea, if we ain’t the goats in the plant,” said Winchell. “I been the fall guy before, and I ain’t gonna be again. I sit down on the inside and see the whole show before I’m interested in anything whatever.”
“I propose exactly that,” said Pendleton. “But obviously we don’t want to talk about a loose, straying hundred thousand dollars in the open street of Jumping Creek, do we?”
“A hundred thousand bones?” said Winchell.
“A hundred grand? Is that the story?” asked Tucker, jerking up his head.
“That’s the story,” said Pendleton.
“Brother,” said Tucker, “I could stay awake all night and listen to that kind of a fairy tale.”
XV
Taggert had waited in his house on the hill at the edge of Jumping Creek for a considerable time since the coming of darkness in a keener state of nervousness than he could ever remember. For the first time in a long life he was distinctly unsure of himself, and the sole center of all his thoughts was Paradise Al Pendleton.
He could not rid his mind of the young man. At last, he felt, he had encountered a force greater than himself. He was partly shamed and partly pleased—shamed to think that at last he had to admit a superior, pleased because now, in his coming age, he found something powerful and young carrying forward in the world. It is not in their own children only that older men feel a profound interest, but for everything in which are invested both youth and power.
It was a totally new sensation for Wallace Taggert. It made him feel suddenly close to the grave. He pitied himself, and at the same time there was a touch of pleasure in his melancholy.
So he went eagerly to the door when he heard hoof beats through the grove of second-growth trees that stood between his house on the hill and the street at the foot of that rising ground.
But there were two visitors instead of one. And he was dismayed when he saw before him the formidable front of Thomas Pendleton, the chief of all that wealthy clan. Behind him loomed the equally imposing shoulders and young fighting face of Ray Pendleton, the youngest of Thomas Pendleton’s sons. One glance at them was sufficient to indicate that they had not come here merely for a pleasant call.
Pendleton came in with a nod, not noticing the hand that Taggert held out toward him. That made small difference to Wallace Taggert. He was used to encountering every species of discourtesy. Only not from the Pendletons.
He stood back from them, therefore, in the room that opened off his hall. It was a dingy, damp, shadowy room, only partially lighted by a lamp with a single burner and a rather smoky chimney. There were a few rickety chairs standing about, a sagging center table, and a moth-eaten carpet on the floor. But for Taggert this furnishing was enough. It did not matter what a chair looked like, so long as it was a place to sit; rugs and carpets were all right so
long as they kept the floor from being noisy underfoot.
In the dull light of that room he watched his visitors, wearing the small, obscure smile that was his quizzical mask against the world.
Thomas Pendleton broke straight into his subject. “Taggert,” he said, “for years you’ve been a poisonous spot in the life here in Jumping Creek. You’ve never done a stroke of good. You’re a leech that sucks out the public blood. We could endure it as long as you didn’t lay your claws on a member of our family. But now we’ve stood enough. I come here in the name of all the Pendletons to tell you that we won’t stand for what you’ve done today.”
It was a sore temptation to Taggert to say that, if the pair would wait a little while, they might see young Paradise Al come in carrying $100,000 of stolen money. But, in fact, Taggert did not really expect Paradise Al to do anything so romantic.
Now he merely muttered: “A man has to follow his real beliefs. I thought it was the voice of Paradise Al Pendleton. I thought that I recognized the voice when he spoke to me in my office.”
“You thought so, did you?” exclaimed Thomas Pendleton. “And then, because of your precious thoughts, you went out straightway and cast a lasting slur, to the best of your ability, against the name of the entire family.”
The banker shrugged his shoulders.
“Taggert,” said the older Pendleton, “you’re going to make some sort of public apology for this outrage. You’re going to publish it in the newspaper, or else we’ll find ways of making life hell for you in this town. Mind you, you won’t have the Draytons to back you up . . . not against Al Pendleton. You won’t have a voice raised on your side.”
“I’m going to apologize for accusing Al,” said Taggert slowly. “But not because I give a damn about all the Pendletons and the Draytons in the world . . . only because of the young fellow himself. He’s worth the whole lot of the rest of you. It’s because of him that I’m going to set him right before the town, if he needs any setting. That’s all, Mister Pendleton. As for you and your son, I’m happier to have you out of my house than in it. Good bye.”
It was rather a facer for the head of the entire Pendleton clan, but he took the blow fairly.
“Ugly language is no advantage to you, man,” he said. “The important thing is that you should do the fellow justice. I have no more to say, except to thank you for making the withdrawal. Come, Ray. We’ll go now.”
They were about to leave when there was a hurried beating on the door, and Taggert himself hurried out rather guiltily to open the door. If it were the young fellow, he would have to whisper two words of warning. When he opened the door, however, he was looking down into the face of Molly Drayton, very dimly seen in the light of the newly risen moon.
“Is Thomas Pendleton here?” she cried.
“Here, Molly, here,” said the rancher, coming to her. “What’s the matter, my dear?”
“I’ve been hunting for you everywhere, all afternoon and evening,” said the girl. “Something’s happened to poor Al. I don’t know what. I’m frightened to death. It’s this horrible fellow . . . this Taggert. He’s driven Al out of his wits!”
“Hush, Molly,” said Thomas Pendleton. “Steady, my dear. You’re a little hysterical. What has Al done?”
“Lost his mind, or almost lost it,” said the girl. “When I got to the house today, there was a terrible look in his eyes. He told me that he had robbed the bank, that he wasn’t fit to marry me, and that he was not a Pendleton at all.”
“What?” said Thomas Pendleton.
“And with his own father in Jumping Creek to verify him, too? It’s his brain . . . it’s this scoundrel of a Taggert who’s badgered him out of his wits.”
“By the eternal!” exclaimed Wallace Taggert. “I guessed it before. He’s a cut above any of you. He’s a cut above the whole lot of the Draytons and the Pendletons. He don’t belong to the worn-out blood. I might have guessed it. Mad? He was mad ever to talk down and call himself one of you. He hoodwinked you like a lot of fools. And I’m glad of it.”
There was a sort of angry glory in the voice of the banker. And before any of the group could reply, guns suddenly began to crash among the moonlit trees before the house.
XVI
Here, in the dark of the underbrush, Rory Pendleton kneeled with Jay Winchell on one side of him and Harry Tucker on the other.
Down the thin lane that penetrated the trees they saw the rider coming. The newly risen moon struck between the trunks of the trees and over the tops of the brush, leaving all of the horse in darkness except his high head. It was Sullivan, the stallion, with Paradise Al on his back.
“Now,” said Rory Pendleton, “there’s two ways about it. You can stick him up and get the money off him, or you can drill him first and pick his pockets afterward.”
“Sticking him up is a fool’s way,” said Tucker instantly. “He ain’t the kind that can be held up without a fight. And once he begins fighting, there’s the devil to pay. I know that . . . I’ve seen him fight before.”
“We’ll drill him,” said Winchell. “I can see to shoot by this light. You take him high and I’ll take him low, Harry.”
“Too bad,” said Rory Pendleton, shrugging his wide shoulders. “But then nobody should be such a fool as to try to throw a hundred thousand dollars back into the hands of a human maw like Taggert. Human nature revolts against such a thing.”
“Stop your talk,” muttered Tucker. “There’s no time for that now. Jay, draw your bead. What’s the matter with the damn’ horse? He must smell a snake or something in the brush.”
For the stallion had halted a little distance away and stood with forelegs braced and head raised high, the moonlight showing how the ears were flattened in angry suspicion against the sides of his head.
The rider did not make the slightest effort to urge the horse forward, but suddenly slipped from the saddle to the ground. As Tucker saw that maneuver, he exclaimed suddenly—”Now, Jay, now!”—and fired his own bullet. Winchell’s rifle reported only a split part of a second later.
“Did you get him?” gasped Rory Pendleton.
“I saw him drop to the ground,” said Winchell.
“I saw him jump into the brush, I thought,” said Tucker. “Damn him if he got away.”
“Wait a minute,” said Pendleton. “If he went down, you’ll hear a groan, or the horse will turn and sniff him . . . that horse loves the fellow.”
He had barely finished that speech when a shadow came flickering out of the brush at the trio, and, as it came, fire and lead spat from the gun it carried.
Winchell fell face forward to the ground. Tucker, turning with a screech of fear, fled away, bounding high, like a rabbit making a spy hop. Rory Pendleton would have fled, also, but a wildcat in human form leaped on him from behind.
He turned about, gasping, staggering. “Al, my dear fellow . . . Al, wait a minute. I want to explain.”
“Who’s there?” called the voice of Taggert from the door of the house.
“A murder plot, Taggert,” answered the voice of Paradise Al. “But it stubbed its toe and fell on its face. That’s all. Rory, walk before me. We’re going into the house.”
“Al,” said the criminal, “if you’ll let me stop here for ten seconds and try to explain.”
“March ahead,” said Paradise Al. “I’ve a mind to let you have it through the small of the back, you dog!”
So it was that Rory Pendleton strode up the steps of the Taggert house and straight in upon an assemblage that could not have been more calamitously gathered, from his point of view. For there, above all, he encountered his brother, face to face.
Thomas Pendleton, amazed, looked from the stalwart figure of his brother to the gun in the hand of the supposed son of that man.
“Rory . . . Al!” exclaimed the head of the clan, “what under heaven is the meaning of this?”
Paradise Al did not look at the big rancher. Instead, his glance had found Molly Drayton standing behind
the others, pale and staring, her hands clasped against her breast.
“Molly,” he said, “why are you here?”
“Because I couldn’t believe the things you said to me today,” answered the girl. “Because I’ve been half crazy ever since. Al, what did you mean?”
“I meant every word of it,” said Paradise Al. “Now I see everybody here that ought to know about what I’ve done and what I am. I’m going to tell you.”
“Not now, not now!” exclaimed Wallace Taggert. He took the young fellow by the shoulder with a firm grip and glared feverishly at him. “I know what you’re going to say,” he went on, “but don’t do it. There’s no need. It would ruin you, Al.”
The young man turned a desperate face toward the banker. “You’re the cleanest and the best of the lot,” he said bitterly. “But I’m going to tell the whole of it. I don’t care if I rot in jail afterward.” He turned toward the frozen faces of the Pendletons. “I was a tramp on the loose. When I hit Jumping Creek, somebody thought that I looked like a Pendleton,” he said. “You came to see me. It was white of you, Pendleton. And I played my hand to get myself taken out of jail. That was all. I didn’t intend to stay around and work a confidence game. But the longer I was here in the West, the better I liked it. Then I saw Molly, and after that I had to stay, whether I wanted to or not. But I was no Pendleton. I have no last name. I’ve worn a few, but I’m a guttersnipe, a foundling. That’s the whole truth.” He paused.
Molly Drayton dropped into a chair and sat with her head bowed, and her hands gripped together, hard, resting on her knees.
Suddenly Rory Pendleton said: “My friends, we can all see that the poor fellow is out of his wits and . . . ”
