by Brand, Max
He turned himself into a ragamuffin for the purpose. Coat, sombrero, boots, socks went into the discard. He rolled his riding trousers to the knee. He had with him the weight of his two Colts, and that was all, when he came over the edge of the draw and started for the house.
The windmill offered some sort of cover for his advance, but it was the sort of skeleton protection which would be watched by the men on guard without actually making a shield for a spy. So he gave up the thought of the windmill and went straight at the house. He had on the straight line only the almost imperceptible undulations of the ground and one good-sized cactus. It was not protection. It was hardly a hint at protection. What he would have to rely upon was the fact that people do not look for men working like snakes in the dust, as he was working now.
He was almost at the cactus, blessing the size of its three large leaves, when lantern light began to wash across the black earth around him. Not one, but several lanterns were brought, and, while he lay there behind the wretchedly imperfect shadow of that cactus, he saw a lantern nailed up at every corner of the house!
That was Rutherford. He was the fellow who would think of bathing the house with light to expose all who approached, whereas most people would have kept their eyes open in darkness and so would have hoped to trap the invader. But Rutherford had a brain.
Not only was there a light at each corner of the irregular building, but there appeared to be a man on guard there, also.
Silver lay sweating in the dust, and it was by no means the heat of the ground that caused the water to pour.
For his position seemed to him most perfectly helpless. To worm his way forward in the darkness had been dangerous and hard enough. To worm his way backward through the light until he reached the edge of the draw would be worse than madness, he was certain. Then what remained for him to do?
In his excitement, he drew a breath that was chiefly dust, and had to lie, strangling, choking, stifling, for whole minutes, controlling the convulsions of his body with a mighty effort of the will to keep from drawing a single gasping breath.
When at last he was able to breathe again, he could give his mind to an insoluble problem. He was more and more convinced that he was hopelessly trapped. There was not even a thing to hope for, except a rain and hailstorm so tremendous that it would blot out the light of the lanterns and give him a chance to crawl away through the mud, but to pray for rain under the starry sky of the desert was like praying for a miracle. Ten months might pass, here, before so much as a shower fell.
The Rutherford men were ideally placed. They had light by which to spy him out if he so much as stirred, and they had their saddle horses at hand if the least suspicious sign appeared to their eyes. They could be in the saddle and away like bullets at the first signal. The mustangs, with thrown reins to anchor them, stood in three groups near the house, four or five in a bunch. There were more than were needed, for the reason, perhaps, that Rutherford had decided to be forehanded and equipped in every possible particular.
Silver, lying flat on his face, could have groaned with despair. He heard one of the men at the nearer corners of the house saying:
“One way of looking at it, this here is a funny business — we hang out a light for a gent to shoot at us by.”
“He won’t shoot,” said the other. “Silver ain’t that kind. There ain’t no Injun about him. He don’t take no advantages.”
“Ain’t he a gunman?” asked the other.
“Sure, he’s a gunman.”
“Then what you mean he don’t take advantages? He’s faster with a gun than other folks are, and he’s straighter with his shooting. That means that he’s got all kind of advantages.”
“I mean, he don’t play ’em. When they crowd him, he fights back, and that’s all there is to it.”
“You sound kind of nutty to me,” said the other. “Here’s a gent with a list of dead as long as my arm, and you say he don’t take advantages? How could he have such a record if he didn’t go out for scalps?”
“You dunno the kind of a fool this bird is. He goes where the water is likely to have fish in it, and then he waits for a fish to show. He don’t drop a line in. He waits for the fish to bite him, and then he bites back.”
“That sounds like fool talk.”
“Does it? What I mean is that he waits for the other gents to crowd him. If they won’t crowd him man by man, they’ll crowd him in couples or gangs. There ain’t many stories of Silver hunted by single men. There’s plenty of stories of him hunted by a whole crew.”
“It looks to me as though Rutherford and Delgas and Waring have got him beat to a frazzle in this here business.”
“Nobody’s got him beat till he’s ten feet buried underground, and even then he’s likely to claw his way out. But there’s numbers and brains against him now. There’s Waring and Rutherford, to say nothin’ of Delgas, that’s worth a little speech all by himself.”
“What is goin’ to happen to Danny Farrel?”
“The same as always happens to a gent that tries to go straight when going crooked is the way the others around him are walking.”
A shadow fell over Silver as he listened to the last words. That shadow struck his brain like a bullet. He hardly dared to look up, but then he saw that it was only one of the horses which had edged close to smell at the tempting green and the bristling thorns of the big cactus. If the brute suddenly took notice of a man lying on the ground and jumped away with a snort, it was apt to bring the attention of the guards to Silver.
Then he saw that the thing might be a sort of act of Providence to give him deliverance from his danger of the moment.
Some one called out at the other end of the house. One of the nearest sentries turned to watch; the other sang out in reply.
That moment Silver used to rise slowly to his feet.
He could not sit in the saddle, of course, but he fitted his knee into the stirrup leather just above the stirrup, and, with his weight resting on that support, he slid the other leg far back, hooking his toes around the pony’s quarter. With his hands he gripped the saddle flaps. He was embarked. Neither his feet nor his body showed, for the moment. He was something suspended in empty air, as it were.
CHAPTER XXII
IN THE HOUSE
The great advantage was that Silver was at last off the ground. The black shadow of the body of the horse was as a blessing to him, but that mustang was not bestowing more than one blessing at a time. He reached around, got a good grip, and took a bite at the shoulder of Jim Silver. The tough flesh slipped from under the teeth of the horse, but it was agony for Silver. He dared not move to beat the head of the horse away, at that moment, for his knee threatened to slip out of the stirrup leather and let him down with a crash in the dust.
Having taken one nip, the horse seemed content. It began to drift on away from the cactus, moving with very short steps. And Silver discovered that the brute was moving not away from the house but toward it!
It seemed to be trying to steal away from the other animals, by the shortness of its steps deceiving the eyes of the men who watched it.
One of them sang out, “What’s the matter with that fool of a hoss?”
“That’s Jerry’s hoss. He’s gone and cinched it up loose. Look at the way that saddle’s turned over!”
“I better fix it. If that hoss has to be used, it’s gotta be used fast and used hard.”
Steps came toward Jim Silver. He loosened the grip of his right hand, though thereby he made his hold on the horse very precarious.
“Wait a minute. Let Jerry do his own work. He’s always sliding out from trouble,” said the other sentry.
The footfall paused.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” said the second speaker, and turned back.
“I never seen a freckle-nosed son that was any good, anyway,” said the other. “And Jerry’s all over freckles.”
“He’s a lazy hobo,” said the other sentry.
Silver, usi
ng his right hand to pluck at the mane of the mustang, tried to pull it away from the house and turn the head of the horse in another direction. But the mustang was perceptibly braced against this weight which lay along its side and therefore it naturally moved in the opposite direction. That happened to be toward the house, and nothing that Silver could do would make the pony change his mind. He dared not reach for the reins, of course.
They were now steering past the corner of the house.
“That hoss is sure a drifter,” said one of the watchers. “He sure aims to stir around.”
“It’s Jerry own fault,” said the other. “He oughta train a hoss to stand when the reins are once throwed on it.”
“Yeah, he’d oughta do that. I wonder is Delgas socking that old rye on the nose, right now?”
By this time the mustang had gone past the corner of the house. As it moved in closer to the wall, a new danger came to Silver, which was that he might now be seen by either of the guards if they chanced to make a single pace out from the wall. But now they were right beside the wall.
Silver softly dropped his feet to the ground, ducked under the neck of the mustang, and stood in front of the black, square mouth of an open window. The blaze of the lanterns struck full on him. He saw the guard off at the right, turn his head and apparently look straight at him. Yet the man in a moment turned his head once more and looked straight before him, whistling! He had seen nothing because he expected to see nothing.
Silver, the next instant, was through the black of the window and kneeling in safety on the floor of the room inside.
Safety? He could hardly call it safety to be in a house where every hand was against him, and where no hands were weak. He heard, very distinctly, the deep voice of Delgas, which was booming in another portion of the house. What a windfall it would be to Delgas and Rutherford if they could get their hands on him!
He smiled a little, as he thought of that.
Then, just outside the window, he heard a voice exclaim: “Look here! Here’s a footmark in the dust. Look at it. Right where the mustang was standin’!”
Silver moved like a snake into a corner of the room and lay still.
“Yeah,” said the second sentry, joining his companion. “It looks like a footprint, all right.”
Then a silence followed in which the imagination of Silver conceived of the truth entering the brains of those fellows.
But presently one of them said: “Well, there ain’t any footmarks leadin’ up to it. You can see that for yourself.”
“Sure I can. But I wanta know how this here mark came.”
“I dunno. Maybe it dropped down out of the sky.”
“Don’t talk like a fool. There ain’t anybody around this house that’d be likely to go without boots, is there?”
“Well, how would a mark like that come there? You think that Silver made it?”
“I dunno. I ain’t thinking.”
“I reckon you ain’t, Slim.”
“All I know is that it’s a funny thing that that mark’s on the ground. I dunno what to make of it.”
“Maybe an angel made it. Jumped down out of the sky and stamped on the ground, and jumped up into the sky ag’in. Maybe there’s an angel laughin’ at us right now.”
“Aw,” said Slim gruffly, “shut up, will you?” His voice entered the room, as he spoke, and now he scratched a match. Silver, curled up in a corner behind a chair, covered his man with a Colt and prayed that he would not have to shoot.
The flame of the match revealed a long, sallow, evil face, and a gaunt neck with an Adam’s apple that moved up and down like a fist.
Slim presently tossed the match over his shoulder and straightened.
“I was just thinking,” he said.
“That’s likely to be kind of hard on you,” said the other.
“Leave me be,” said Slim. “I’m goin’ to go and report this here.”
“Are you? You’ll catch it if you do. There’s some of the boys that think you ain’t too bright already, Slim, and if you start in talkin’ about angels that leave their footprints on the ground — well, there’ll be trouble!”
“Hold your trap,” said Slim, “or I’ll slam it shut for you. I’m goin’ to tell Rutherford and see what he’ll have to say.”
The footfall departed with a soft jingling of spurs.
Silver looked desperately about him in the dark of the room. He could not stay there. Where could he stay in the place when once the word was brought to the great Rutherford? The active wit of that man would not fail to hitch importance to the mystery of that footprint in the dust.
Silver found the knob of a door and opened it upon the dark of a hall. Through the darkness, voices came to him intimately, dwelling in his ear. He saw the long yellow-red slit of lamplight that showed where a door fitted poorly to its jamb.
Then, in farther distance, he could make out the sharp, high-pitched voice of Slim saying words which he did not understand, but which were undoubtedly about the mystery of that footprint. A moment later the house would be searched. There would be nothing for him except to fight as well as he could until they decided to burn him out. It would not take them very long to decide that, of course.
Another door, just a step down the hallway, yawned suddenly with a low groan of hinges. As he jerked back his head, he saw a lamp carried in the hand of Esther Maxwell, its light close to her tired face and the red blotches of her eyes.
He drew back from her sight still farther, but he called softly out of the darkness of his room, as the light walked toward him in regular pulsations down the hall.
“Esther! Esther! Do you hear me? It’s Jim Silver.”
He heard the catch and the long take of her breath, like a soft moan. Then he ventured to step out before her. The lamp wobbled out of her hand. He caught it. He took her by the wrists and crushed them together.
“Take hold of yourself!” said Silver savagely.
She nodded, breathless.
“They’ll be hunting for me through the house in another minute,” said he, returning the lamp to her hand. “Hide me somewhere. In your room is as good as the next place.”
He heard the voice of Rutherford calling: “Billy! Mike! Whisky Joe!”
“Quick! Quick!” he urged her.
She tried to run past him up the stairs to show the way. but he checked her. Whatever happened. no running footfalls must be heard by those who would soon be hunting through the place for him.
They went up the narrow stairway. It had no railing for safety or comfort and it was simply bracketed out from the wall, so that squeaking was unavoidable even when he walked close to the supporting wall.
There was no hallway, only a single landing and door at the head of the steps. He opened that and glided through in the lead as a trampling of many feet came into the hall beneath and the voice of Delgas boomed:
“Who’s that?”
“It’s I,” said the girl. “What’s wrong?” Delgas imitated her stammering voice and roared with laughter.
“The little fool’s goin’ to fall down on her bean,” said Delgas. “She’s scared pink and blue, already. Well, honey, there ain’t nothing wrong — yet — but if there turns out to be a man in the house, there’s goin’ to be a whole lot wrong. Come on, boys!”
The girl entered the room behind Silver and closed the door behind her, the light staggering in her frightened hand. She turned and looked with ghostly eyes at him.
“What can we do?” said her soundless lips.
He went across the floor like a cat, took the lamp, and put it on the center table.
Then he looked around him.
For a window there was only a pair of square holes punched into the roof, each about a foot wide. The furniture consisted of a small wardrobe, the little center table, the washstand, two narrow chairs, and an iron bedstead. There was no paint on the floor, walls, or ceiling. It was simply a bare box. The air was hot. The sun of the long afternoon had turned the room into a
n oven. And as the sweat trickled down the face of Silver, seeing how perfectly he was trapped, he thought once more of dead Steve Wycombe who was reaching so strongly out of the grave to draw down after him the man who had taken his life.
Then Silver turned back to the white, staring face of the girl.
“There’s nothing for me to do but hide,” he whispered. “There’s no place for me to hide except under that bed. You do something. Sit down and write a letter. Do anything to show that you’re occupied, and if they want to come in to search — don’t oppose them!”
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SEARCH
He slid under the bed. It was sufficiently wide and the shadow the lamp threw was sufficiently steep so that he would be hidden from the gaze of any except a man who leaned over and peered for him. But if they searched in the room at all, were they not sure to look carefully under the bed?
He could see the girl sitting at the center table. He could see her as far as her elbows; he could hear the rapid scratching of her pen.
“Where’s Danny?” he whispered.
“Don’t talk!” she gasped.
“They can’t hear, if you whisper. Where’s Danny?”
“In your room. With Mr. Rutherford.”
“What are they going to do with him?”
“Keep him. They’re going to keep him to make sure that you do nothing and then — ”
Even her whisper was more than she could maintain, at that point.
And Silver understood. They would keep Dan Farrel with them until the drive into the mountains had been completed and then, instead of giving him freedom, they would put a bullet through his head and leave him for the buzzards and coyotes. They would be reasonably sure that Jim Silver would not interfere so long as his friend was in their hands. It seemed to Silver, as he lay there and ran his swift eye back over the pages of his life, that all his troubles had sprung from his friendships, and yet all of those labors had not yielded him a single friend whom he cared to take with him on his adventures. Where he met a man, there he left him. His partners remained where he had found them, fixed in his memory like the mountains; only Silver went on.
