by Max Brand
In a narrow path of firelight that streamed between two of the boulders, he saw a man walk past him. He dared look no higher than the knees. He saw the gleam of the spoon-handled spurs, brightly gilded. And at the edge of the water that figure paused, looking down, gun in hand, no doubt, at the outstretched body of Barney.
No, the fellow merely stooped, filled a canteen with water, and returned toward the fire.
Barney, breathing again, took heed of his surroundings. It was the deep, black shadow of a large rock that had blanketed him away from the unsuspecting gaze of that water carrier. In that same shadow he could rise to his knees and peek from side to side and over the top securely.
To his left was Len Peary seated against a narrow projection of rock. In his hands, which were free, was a tin of coffee, that he sipped comfortably, while smoking a cigarette. They had secured him, simply, by passing the length of a lariat around and around his body, then knotting it behind the rock.
Two men had lain down, wrapped in their blankets, their faces turned from the fire toward the cliff. Another sat on a boulder with his back to the fire, a rifle across his knees, while he kept watch on the trail that came down the face of the cliff, the one apparent direction from which danger could come at the party. The fourth man, now tending the coffee pot at the fire, was the sheriff himself. He was humming a tune, contentedly, the short-stemmed pipe working up and down between his teeth, now and then.
Barney worked snake-like to the rear of Peary’s stone and rapidly unfastened the knot that held the rope. Off to his left the well of the ravine was no longer a sheer face of rock, but a steep slant of boulders of all sizes. Once he had Peary free, perhaps they could dodge away to safety among those stones, and so climb up to the top of the bank. But the shudder of cold that was in the body of Barney Dwyer was not in his mind. Whatever happened, his life was not a thing of importance. He would never find, he was sure, a soul more tender and sympathetic than that of the girl, and to her he was a mere object of pitying contempt.
A sudden start that tugged on the coils of the rope, as the knot came free in his fingers, told him that Len Peary was aware of what was happening. He had to whisper: “Steady . . . and watch your chances.”
He could see the sombrero of Len Peary nod in understanding above the top of the rock.
But now the sheriff came straight from the fire and sat down, cross-legged, beside his prisoner. “I can tell you this, Peary,” he said gravely. “If you make a confession, you’ll probably get your life. And life in a prison is better than a broken neck and the long night.”
“I know.” Peary nodded. “But the fact is that I didn’t kill Buddy Marsh.”
“You weren’t even at the hold-up, I suppose?” sneered the sheriff.
“I’m saying nothing about that,” answered Peary. “But I’m telling you that I didn’t kill Marsh. I’ve never pulled a trigger in my life until the other fellow was going for his gun with a clean, clear break for both of us.”
“Do you stick on that?”
“I stick on that, because it’s true,” said Peary.
“Well,” said the sheriff, “whatever the truth is, they have enough to hang you. And they’ll do it. I don’t pity you. It’s what you have coming to you . . . you and all your kind. But because you’re young, I was trying to show you the easiest way out.”
“Thanks,” said Peary. “But I still keep hoping.”
“What sort of hope have you got?” asked Sheriff Elder. “The only thing that could get at us here would be a bird. And tomorrow we only have a few miles to get you into Coffeeville. Where’s your hope, Peary?”
“I was born hoping, I’ll keep on hoping till I die,” said Peary carelessly.
And that was the moment that Barney chose. He rose from hands and knees. The sheriff, as though a shadow of peril whipped across his quick mind, jerked his head around over one shoulder, but Barney already had him by the arms, and so jerked him to his feet, and held him helpless.
Len Peary was up, also, shaking off the limp coils of the rope, and into the shout of the sheriff went the Indian yell of Peary as he snatched the revolver from the sheriff’s holster.
The sentinel at the foot of the trail had leaped and whirled toward the noise. The pair who was wrapped in blankets rolled out again, reaching for their guns, but they saw their targets retreating with the sheriff held as a protection before them. Back among the boulders they went, while Sheriff Jim Elder, maddened with shame and disappointment, called out to his men to fire, regardless of his safety. But they would not shoot through him to get at the other pair.
All was confusion. One yelled one bit of advice, and one another, until, when they were high up the boulder-strewn slope, big Barney Dwyer released the sheriff.
The man ran down the way toward the frantic confusion of the forms around the fire, shouting orders as he went. But Dwyer and Leonard Peary were already on the level of the upper trail. The grip of Peary bit into the arm of Barney Dwyer.
“Someday, old-timer . . . ” said Peary. “Someday . . . ”
He could not finish the remark. There was no need of finishing it. The tremor of his voice was enough.
Big Mack and the girl were on them, and the red mare came at Barney, sniffing him curiously, snorting, and then pawing at the ground.
“We saw that by the firelight,” said McGregor. “We saw the shadow of you all the time, and of all the cool bits of deviltry that I ever saw . . . well, you’re alive, Peary, and that’s more than you have a right to be.”
“He ought not to have turned the sheriff loose,” complained Len Peary. “We all could have said a few things to that fellow Elder. What’s the matter, Sue? What are you crying about? Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m crying because I’ve found out what a hero is,” said the girl.
“They’re coming pretty fast!” exclaimed McGregor. “They’re coming up the trail fast, and they’re well mounted, the lot of ’em. Len, pop into the saddle on the pinto!”
“It’s the horse of Sue,” said Peary.
“I’m talking about the saving of your neck, man!” cried McGregor. “They won’t hurt a woman . . . or a dunce that happens to be a hero. Len, jump on that horse and come with me!”
And Peary, to the bewilderment of Barney, actually sprang on the pinto and galloped away with McGregor.
XII
They had reason for their going that beat louder and louder in their ears as the posse men drove their horses as hard as possible up the steep slope of the cliff trail. The sheriff had straightened out all the confusion of his men and now he brought them on with a savage rush, eager for revenge, eager to make atonement.
From his horse, Peary had cried out: “Scatter, Sue and Barney! They won’t bother you. They’ll tackle us. Scatter and lie low! They’ve left us . . . they’ve left you, Barney. I won’t believe it. Try the mare . . . try the mare and ride for your life, if you can! Oh, Barney . . . the traitors!”
As for Barney, he moved in a dream, dimly. The thing was beyond his comprehension. They might have shared the horses. They might have stayed to fight. Perhaps they would have done this except that McGregor realized that his was the only rifle in his party, and revolvers are poor things for moonlight shooting.
But they had fled with hardly a word.
Barney went to the mare and fitted his foot into the stirrup, not because he had hope, but because his back was so against the wall. Then he swung into the saddle and sat loosely, waiting for the explosion that would hurl him into the air.
Instead, the mare merely lifted her head and turned it, looking back at him with ears pricked. There was not a tremor in her powerful body. She was still as a stone.
In the meantime, the posse men were near. Their voices seemed already to have topped the rimrock and to be rushing at the fugitives. Far away, the forms of McGregor and Len Peary were dwindling in the moonshine, but Barney Dwyer would be in the very jaws of danger. That moon that had given him so ineffectual a light
when he needed it, now seemed to be a blazing sun.
He reined the mare across the neck. At the first touch of pressure, she turned readily, and the heart of Barney leaped. She was his, and it was not strength that had conquered her. Even in the terror of that moment and the haste, he had time to realize that there is a force of beauty and mystery in life far different from the brutal ways of most men.
He stretched his hand to the girl. “She’s tamed, Sue!” he called to her. “And she’s strong enough to carry us both. Get up behind me . . . ”
She waved him frantically away with both hands. “Go on!” she shouted. “They won’t hurt me. I’m only a woman. Save yourself, Barney. Don’t . . . ”
“I’ll stay here, then,” said Barney simply.
When she saw him so calmly immoveable, she ran suddenly, put her foot on the stirrup, and was instantly up behind him.
And as Barney patted the shoulder of the red mare, she broke into a gallop as long, as free, as swift as though there were not a feather’s weight upon her back.
Every stride was a long step toward safety, but the mare was hardly in motion before Elder and his men were on the upper plateau. They could hear his voice, shouting: “Mike, Pete! Take the girl and Dwyer, yonder. I’m going after Peary and the other. Ride like the devil, and then come back on my trail . . . ”
So, while two riders swept off after McGregor and Peary, two more came like yelling Indians after Barney and the girl.
When Barney looked back, it seemed to him that those flying mustangs must surely overtake him in an instant, but still the long stroke of the mare’s gallop kept them at their distance. How she could have swept away from them with only a single burden on her back! If she could last until they reached the dark cloud of trees that rolled up on the other side of the little plateau—then there might be a chance to dodge away to safety. Toward that goal, Barney directed her. Gallantly she ran, but almost instantly the immense strain began to tell. Her ears flattened; a shudder of effort came in every stride.
And the girl cried, close to the ear of Barney Dwyer: “Let me drop off, Barney! Then you’ll be off like a bird. Let me drop here, or I’ll throw myself down to the ground . . . they won’t bother about me . . . they’ll go on after you and . . . ”
Her right arm was firmly about him. He caught that arm and held it in a vise. “When you have to stop, I have to stop with you,” he said quietly. “We’ve still got a ghost of a chance.”
He heard her groan with despair, but the grip of her arm tightened around him. Joy came over him like a light, like a madness. To her, he might be no more than a dolt, a half-wit, but for this moment they were sweeping on to a single destiny.
Behind them, he heard the pounding of hoofs that seemed to make the earth beneath them tremble. But here were the woods, a pale glistening front of trees and black caverns of shadow.
Under those shadows he swept. The beds of pine needles almost silenced the noise of hoofs, yet the pair was so close behind that he could feel the beating of the hoofs. He crashed the mare through a tangle of shrubbery, dodged into a region of vast shadow under the pine trees, and suddenly halted the mare beside a great trunk. Both of them slid to the ground, and waited. Straight toward them came the noise of the pursuers, the pounding hoofs, the creaking of the stirrup leathers. Two dim shapes drew into view, pressed nearer—and went by! They passed through a little silver streak of moonlight, and were gone.
So the two stood in a silence. Barney heard the labored breathing of the mare. With every inhalation the cinch straps creaked a little.
“We’d better go on,” said Barney. “They might stop going ahead and begin to hunt for us on the back trail.”
He walked slowly on, at right angles to the direction in which they had fled. The girl hurried to get into step with him. She was on one side. On the other, his hand rested affectionately on the mane of the red mare. And so they went by the big trees, quietly, never speaking, until they came to a point where the trees left off for a moment, and the shoulder of the mountain dropped swiftly away before them. Through the moon haze they looked far off at mountain shapes, only real and clear where the light glistened on the upper reaches of snow and of ice. Out of the black of the cañon below them a voice of water kept booming softly, like the beating of great kettle drums and the blowing of distant horns.
She stretched an arm out, pointing. “You’re like that, Barney,” she said. “There’s more scope to you than to millions of the men I’ve known. If ever I’ve hurt you . . . ”
“I’m used to pain,” said Barney earnestly. “It doesn’t matter. And I’m so happy now that I want to shout. Only, shouting wouldn’t say it at all.”
“You’re happy because you’ve saved the life of one man . . . a man you didn’t like . . . a man who’d wronged you . . . but you saved him. And then you saved me from being paraded in front of people, and shamed and disgraced. That’s why you’re happy.”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything but this,” said Barney. “I mean, being here . . . with you.”
She began to laugh a little, but there was an amazing tenderness in the sound.
He said: “Why are you laughing? I don’t understand, but I suppose that’s because I’m not very bright or . . . ”
“No, you’re not bright,” said the girl, facing suddenly toward him. “The bright things are often the small things . . . the rats and the squirrels. And small minds are often bright ones. Always fighting for themselves. Thinking of nothing but themselves. Hungry for money and praise, and glory. Never seeing the truth. Never giving up heart or soul to anyone. But no one has the strength of your hands and no one has the strength of your soul.”
“Hush,” said Barney, shocked with amazement. “You mustn’t say things just to make me happy. I know how simple I am. There’s very little that I really know.”
“You know all that God wants a man to know!” cried the girl. “I’d go on my knees and pray, if praying would make me like you. But how could I ever be gentle or true or brave or noble like you, Barney? How could I ever be anything more than the dust under your feet?”
He saw that tears were running down her face. He put out both his hands, but, in his awe, he dared not touch her.
“I’ve made you cry,” said Barney. “I’m always doing what’s wrong. Forgive me, Sue. I wouldn’t hurt you. I’m just a blunderer. You’re the only person I’ve ever been happy with.”
She got hold of those hands that were clumsily, helplessly extended toward her, and, drawing them over her shoulders, she said: “It’s pity for all the pain you’ve suffered that makes me cry. And I’m crying because I’ve been such a wretched thing, such a small, vain, silly, worthless, selfish nothing. But I’ll never have tears in my eyes again, if you mean what you say about being happy with me. Do you mean it?”
“Mean it?” said Barney. He took a great breath. “Yes,” he said, “I mean it so much that there’s an ache in my heart.”
“Barney, Barney, Barney,” said the girl.
“You’re still crying,” said Barney Dwyer. “What have I done now?”
She came closer to him. She drew one of his arms about her neck, and leaned her head back against it, watching his face. “If you’re the least whit happy with me now,” she said,” do you think that you could go on being happy if I try to make myself over and work with all my might to be better, and be more like you.”
“You’re not laughing at me,” said Barney. “Why do you talk that way?”
“Because, Barney, everything has gone out of my life. Everything else is something I dreamed, but now I’m awake. I’m saying that I love you, Barney.”
“Don’t,” he begged her. “You can’t be saying that. I’m only Barney Dwyer . . . who everyone laughs at.”
“Then I want to be laughed at, too,” said the girl.
With his hands on her shoulders, gently he pushed her back so that he could see her face, and consider it. In his eyes there was no more joy than there was fear and r
everence.
“It’s like praying, and being answered,” said Barney. “Only, I never would have dared even to pray for this.”
About the Author
Max Brand is the best-known pen name of Frederick Faust, creator of Dr. Kildare, Destry, and many other fictional characters popular with readers and viewers worldwide. Faust wrote for a variety of audiences in many genres. His enormous output, totaling approximately 30,000,000 words or the equivalent of 530 ordinary books, covered nearly every field: crime, fantasy, historical romance, espionage, Westerns, science fiction, adventure, animal stories, love, war, and fashionable society, big business, and big medicine. Eighty motion pictures have been based on his work along with many radio and television programs. For good measure he also published four volumes of poetry. Perhaps no other author has reached more people in more different ways.
Born in Seattle in 1892, orphaned early, Faust grew up in the rural San Joaquin Valley of California. At Berkeley he became a student rebel and one-man literary movement, contributing prodigiously to all campus publications. Denied a degree because of unconventional conduct, he embarked on a series of adventures culminating in New York City where, after a period of near starvation, he received simultaneous recognition as a serious poet and successful author of fiction. Later, he traveled widely, making his home in New York, then in Florence, and finally in Los Angeles.
Once the United States entered the Second World War, Faust abandoned his lucrative writing career and his work as a screenwriter to serve as a war correspondent with the infantry in Italy, despite his fifty-one years and a bad heart. He was killed during a night attack on a hilltop village held by the German army. New books based on magazine serials or unpublished manuscripts or restored versions continue to appear so that, alive or dead, he has averaged a new book every four months for seventy-five years. Beyond this, some work by him is newly reprinted every week of every year in one or another format somewhere in the world. A great deal more about this author and his work can be found in The Max Brand Companion (Greenwood Press, 1997) edited by Jon Tuska and Vicki Piekarski.
