by Max Brand
But Paradise Al raised one finger and the tongue of the blackmailer was turned to stone.
“The rest of you know what happened, and how I got a start through you, Mister Pendleton. Then Molly . . . well, in the midst of everything, the man I called my father came out here and held me up. He wanted twenty thousand dollars for pretending that he was my father, and that everything would be all right.”
“An infernal, audacious lie!” exclaimed Rory Pendleton.
“You have the money on you now,” said Al.
“Not a penny that . . . ” began Rory Pendleton.
“Put it on that table,” commanded Paradise Al. He raised and pointed like a gun the forefinger of his right hand. He spoke quietly enough, but something about him turned the courage of Rory Pendleton to melted butter. He took the fat wallet from his pocket and placed it on the table, where it fell open, showing the thickly compressed stacks of greenbacks.
“I cracked the Taggert safe,” said Al, “and I took . . . ”
“Be quiet, Al!” exclaimed Taggert. “You’re committing yourself to . . . ”
“And here’s the rest of it,” said Paradise Al. He swung forward the saddlebag that was slung over his left shoulder and threw it on the floor. “There’s the rest of the loot. That squares me with you, Taggert, I hope.”
He turned to Thomas Pendleton. “Uncle Tom,” he said, noting the bent head of the big man. “I’m calling you that for the last time. It’s to thank you for giving me my start. You get the place I started, of course, and the cows and everything on it. It was Pendleton land, and mostly Pendleton money that started me. I’m sorry it’s ended, because being a Pendleton was the happiest experience of my life.”
Thomas Pendleton lifted his big head and tried to speak, but failed. It was his son who cried out: “Why, Father, if I had the doing of it, I’d get hold of Al and adopt him! I’d get him into our crowd. He’s better than the whole lot of us. I don’t care what he’s done. He’s come clean in the wind-up.”
Al heard nothing of this. He went to Molly Drayton, and, standing before her, said: “Sullivan and I are going farther west, Molly. I was all a pretense, but you’ll forget me fast enough, and I won’t hold any malice. I thought more of you than all the rest of the world. I only want you to know that. Are you saying good bye to me, Molly?”
She did not stir.
Suddenly Taggert turned on the others, and, with vague, scooping gestures of his hands, he brushed them from the room, as it were. Then, closing the door, he stood with them in the dingy hallway.
“They’ve got to be left alone for a while,” he said.
No one answered except Rory Pendleton, to say: “I’ll be going.” With his head lowered, his eyes fixed on the floor, he opened the outer door and went down the steps. There he saw before him the figure of a man crawling away from the trees on hands and knees. It was Winchell, of course, and the dregs of decency and manhood left in the blackmailer compelled him to go slowly after the wounded man.
In the hall of the house Thomas Pendleton was able to say at last: “It is the worst blot that ever fell on the Pendleton name. As for Paradise Al, we need him, we want him to make us forget Rory.”
“Hush,” said Taggert. He looked down at the floor, smiling, but he raised one finger to caution the others to silence, his ugly head a little to the side as he himself listened intently.
They could hear, clearly enough, the voice of the girl, rising from instant to instant, as if hope had returned, and with it the promise of happier days.
The Quest
In addition to thirteen serials, in 1933, Faust published twenty-seven stories, which varied from short story to book length. One of the short novels was “The Quest” which appeared in the May issue of West. It appeared under Faust’s Max Brand pseudonym and is the first of a trio of stories about Barney Dwyer, a social outcast with more brawn than brain, who has yet to find a place in the world despite his efforts to do what is right. Another Dwyer story, “The Trail of the Eagle” which appeared in the July, 1933 issue of West, is collected in Outlaws from Afar (Five Star Westerns, 2007).
I
A wind promising rain churned up little puffs of alkali dust and filled the air with a clean, pungent scent, but none of the cowpunchers outside the bunkhouse moved. They did not wish to be driven into the airless, stale heat of the room, so they remained sprawling, head and shoulders against the wall, and bodies stretched out limply while they stared gloomily toward the west. That half of the sky was all fire and smoke around a thunderhead larger than a mountain range and constantly rising. Sometimes lightning worked a vein of gold across the foundations of the cloud, while a gusty wind blew out of the sky and set wheels of dust spinning toward the ranch. Everything pointed to rain but the men continued to smoke their cigarettes in a gloomy silence, waiting for the boss to give commands for the covering of the load of hay that stood in front of the barn. Getting in winter feed is harder work than riding range, and they were all very tired.
Daniel Peary, who owned that stretch of sand and grama grass from the foothills to the river, had been studying the progress of that cloud even more intently than the rest, yet he delayed the order to pull a pair of big tarpaulins over the load of hay. He was a working boss, and his hands were sore from the haft of a pitchfork, and there was a quirk of pain in the muscles of his back. He understood the temper of his men, for his mind was as theirs, and he merely said banteringly: “The rest of us are all tuckered out, Barney, and you’re as fresh as a daisy. Why don’t you go and pitch that load of hay into the barn before the rain gets it wet?”
A reclining cowpuncher gets up very much like a horse, with a roll to the side and then a heave from hands and knees, but Barney Dwyer rose without effort as an Indian will rise, or a gymnast in the circus. He turned his good-humored face toward the coming of the storm and nodded in understanding.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll throw it off.” He walked to the wagon, caught hold of the lofty edge of the hayrack, and drew himself up as though the body depending from his hands was not two hundred pounds of bone and solid muscle but a stuffing of dry straw.
He heard a mutter of laughter behind him. In a sudden flow of the wind he distinctly made out the voice of the boss saying: “He ain’t a man, he’s a horse!” Barney winced a little. He was accustomed to contempt, but he had never grown used to it. He rubbed his big hands together, and picked out the pitchfork that was stuck in the top of the load like an ornament on a great pale head of hair. The wild mare had come to the edge of the corral. Sometimes she looked toward the storm cloud; sometimes she looked at Barney Dwyer with her mane and the silk of her tail rippling out to the wide in the wind. She seemed to be drawing a deduction from the cloud and the man with the cunning of her savage brain. And he stared back at her for an instant with admiration such as he always felt for creatures who are adequately proportioned brain and body. As for himself, he was all body and no brain. Many a time he had been told so, with curses.
He walked to the edge of the load, flashed the pitchfork, and leaned back, pulling a great roll of hay, a huge and increasing poundage, toward the door of the barn. As the weight increased, as the struggle became greater, a fervor came up in him and burned away the shame of his dullness of wits. For it was not often that he had a chance to fill those great hands of his with all that they could do, until his legs hardened to maximum iron and the cordage of muscle along his back began to creak with the strain. He began to pant, making a small, snarling sound of joy.
He was putting almost all his strength into the labor, but carefully, for he knew that when he was at full strain odd things happened to the tools he used. Axe handles, shovels, new leather reins burst apart. On this very ranch, in the short month of his employment there, he had broken two axes and a big-bladed cross-cut saw, meant for two men to sway, had snapped while he was using it alone. The temper had failed Daniel Peary on that occasion.
“You big flat-faced fool!” he had shouted. “You
break anything more on this place, and you’re fired. That cross-cut saw is worth more than you are. You’re a dummy, is what you are!”
Barney Dwyer sighed as he remembered. People were always talking to him like that. And now he used all the care he could in tugging that monstrous roll of hay to the door of the barn, and pushing it through. It fell heavily, whipping an entangled train behind it, and he heard it land. The filling of the barn had barely commenced.
A damp wind struck his forehead. It made him hurry his work. Again and again he drove great weights of hay through the barn window.
“Good boy, Barney!” called the cowpunchers, lolling in the dust in front of the bunkhouse. They were all clever experts with rope and gun. When they saw a cow cutting up in the distance, they could tell by its actions what sort of flies were bothering it. They could doctor a sick horse, mend harness, build fence, weave horsehair into ropes and bridles. To see them work, to see what they accomplished with their puny hands, was always a wonder and a delight to him. Therefore, although they laughed as they praised him now, he forgave the laughter and reddened with joy because of the praise. He felt that they were good fellows, and someday, if the grace of chance ever came to him, he wanted to do one great thing in their behalf to gain their affection, even if he never could have their respect.
There was more than a ton of hay on that wagon; he cleared it off with the expedition of a Jackson fork until hardly a quarter of it was left. A volley of chill wind struck him and put twenty small cold fingertips upon his skin. He ran to complete his work, dipped the pitchfork deep, and heaved back. Alas, the handle of the fork shattered and broke off close to the tines.
Fear came over him. He saw the boss leap up and run toward the wagon; he dared not face Daniel Peary.
“Get off of that!” shouted Peary. “Get off of that wagon. Get off the ranch. Damn you . . . I’m through with you. I never saw such a fool. Get off that wagon!”
He climbed down to the ground. After the weight of exertion that he had laid upon himself, his body felt light. He was covered with sweat, and the wind blew him cold all over. But his heart was colder still. Night was coming on, but there was no shadow in night to compare with the darkness of his spirit. He looked down at the ground. All that he saw of Daniel Peary was the hand that he brandished under his nose.
“You’re as worthless as that fool of a mustang mare. She’s big, too. She’s strong, too. And what’s she worth? She ain’t worth a damn! I’m through with you. I’m gonna pay you off. I owe you forty dollars and I’m gonna give it to you now. You take it and get out. I oughta take off the price of the things you’ve broke. You’ve eaten for three and you’ve broken for ten!”
That freckled fellow, Billy Murphy, sang out: “Give him the mare for part pay. Give him the mare for thirty dollars.”
“I’ll do it!” shouted Daniel Peary, his rage increasing as his injustice began. “I’ll throw in the mare for thirty dollars. Take her. Take her and the old saddle and bridle in the barn. Take the bunch for thirty-five dollars. Take that, or you don’t take nothing!”
Barney Dwyer looked sadly toward Murphy. Billy Murphy was clever at everything. He could sew like a woman, sing like a minstrel, do magic tricks with cards. And clever men were always the hardest on Barney Dwyer.
“What would I do with the mare, Mister Peary?” he asked.
“What would anybody do with a horse? Ride her, you halfwit!” shouted Daniel Peary.
Barney Dwyer shrank again. He could not argue, but he knew that the best horse wranglers in the outfit had been thrown by the wild horse. He knew that they had brought over the Mexican, Juan Martinez, to try his Spanish bit and cruel spurs on her, and she had thrown Martinez twice, and tried to eat him after the second time.
“All right,” said Barney. “That only leaves five dollars cash.”
The cruelty of Daniel Peary waxed as he saw his victim submissive.
“You’ll get that five dollars by walking for it,” he said. “Walk up to that town of Timberline and find my son Leonard. Len owes me more’n five dollars. He can pay you five. Wait a minute. I’ll give you an order for him.”
He snatched out a little five-cent notebook with a sweat-stained red cover. With a pencil he scribbled a note. “Take that,” he said, thrusting into the hands of Barney the page on which he had written.
Barney Dwyer went into the bunkhouse and rolled his pack. There was not enough of it to take long. He rolled the pack long and lean and hard and then walked out into the red of the sunset and the silence of the men. He was surprised to find that they were not laughing at him. Strange to say, they were all frowning at the ground, biting their lips. And Daniel Peary walked up and down in as black a rage as ever, never glancing at his hired hands.
Barney went along the line and shook hands. He was amazed again. They all stood up. They all gripped his hand heartily.
Billy Murphy said: “I’m sorry, kid. I’ve got a couple of bucks. Here, you take that along with you.” He held it out.
Others were reaching for money, too, and Barney Dwyer backed away from them, overwhelmed with embarrassment, crushed by their kindness.
“I wouldn’t be needing that,” said Barney Dwyer. Tears came into his eyes. He choked, he felt that in all the world there were no men so noble, so good, so kind as these. “I’ll be getting five dollars up there in Timberline,” he said. “But I’ll remember that you’ve offered it to me. I’ll never forget that. I’ll remember you all, because I see that you’re my friends.”
As the fullness of this delightful conviction came over him, it forced back his head a little, and the sunset flushed on his face as he smiled at them.
He offered his hand to Daniel Peary, saying: “I’m sorry that I’ve broken things. I guess I’ve broken about as much as my pay would come to. Maybe I’d better not take the mare?”
“Take the mare and be damned,” said Peary, and turned his back.
To that lean back, somewhat bowed by riding and many labors, Barney said, with a sigh: “I wanted not to break things, and I’m sorry. If I had a chance to do anything to make up, I’d like to do it.”
Suddenly Peary whirled around on him. “There’s one thing you can do for me, and, if you break his neck handling him, I don’t care. Take my son Len and drag him out of Timberline from that gang of crooks and put him back here on the ranch, where he belongs. Go on and do that for me . . . and I’ll give you another horse as good as that.”
He snapped his fingers at Barney Dwyer and strode off toward the ranch house, while Barney went into the barn and took the bridle, the old, battered rag of a saddle with the rope coiled on the horn of it, and went out into the corral.
He had to corner the mare half a dozen times, before he managed to rope her, for she dodged like a cat and made a game of it. However, she knew a rope, if she knew nothing else, and, once the noose was around her neck, she stood quietly and let him put on saddle and bridle. The cowpunchers stood along the corral fence, laughing, giving advice. He had no hope of being able to ride her when so many better men had failed, but nevertheless it was his duty to try. So he climbed into the saddle.
Sitting into that saddle was like sitting down on the end of a flying piston rod. With the power of his knees he crushed the big mustang till she grunted. Then he rose high in the air and came floundering down on hands and knees.
When he got up, the mare was standing in a corner of the corral, playing with her bit, cocking her ears at him.
“Next time you go up, bring us down a nice cool chunk of that cloud, Barney, will you?” called someone.
The men began to shout and laugh. They kept up that shouting and laughing while the red bay mare shed him six more times from her back, and finally slammed the length of his body against the wall of the barn.
He lay in the dust, stunned, till Billy Murphy and another man ran to pick him up. They thought he might have broken his back or fractured his skull, but he stood up and shrugged his shoulders as he started for the mar
e again.
“What’s the use, Barney?” said Murphy. “She’ll kill you, if you keep it up. What’s the use?”
“Don’t you think I’d better keep on trying?” asked Barney.
“Not unless you’re made of India rubber.”
“I guess I’ll stop trying, then”—Barney Dwyer sighed—“because I’m not made of rubber.”
They laughed loudest of all at that, but he forgave them easily. They had offered him their money, all of them, and he would never forget.
He led the mare out of the corral.
“Hey!” said Billy Murphy. “You come back and sleep here tonight. Not even a dog ought to be run off on a night like this, with a storm coming on.”
“I can’t stay,” said Barney. “The boss wouldn’t like it. He wouldn’t like to have me stay around on the place. He doesn’t like very well to have me around.”
So he shook hands once more with Murphy, and headed straight into the foothills, toward the mountains. It would take him two days to get to Timberline, probably. His chances of eating along the way were very slender. And he had with him, for capital, exactly $5 in a note that had to be collected.
The night came down on him as he mounted through the hills, and the long-promised rain was on him with a rush and a roar, filling the darkness with sound as a river fills a narrow stone cañon. He thought of turning the mare loose, since she was useless to him. But as the thunder boomed over them and the lightning sprang, she pressed up to his shoulder for comfort. He stroked her face and went on, glad of that companion.
II
The world of dust and grama grass turned into a world of mud. He could not pause to rest unless he lay down in the wet, so he slopped on, stepping blindly most of the time. He would have lost the trail before long. It was the mare who kept to it, steadily, so he let her have her way.
Presently she began to act as though she were alone, not under the guidance and the chaperonage of the demigod man. If a strange scent reached to her down the wind, she paused, and Barney stopped beside her, admiring her manner of lifting her head and studying danger that was to him unguessed. Once or twice she stopped to sniff at the ground. Once she shied suddenly far to the left, and almost tore the lead rope from his hand. This wilderness of night was to her a hook in which she could read clearly and well, while to him it was a black wall that he leaned his head against, to no purpose.
