by Max Brand
“This is the stuff, pal,” he said.
“All right,” said Duval. “Climb onto your horse. I’ll hold it for you.” He took the satchel from the hands of the other, and Henry climbed with labor back into his seat.
“Do we stop at the house for anything else?” asked Henry. “Have we got everything with us? Don’t look to me as though you’re carryin’ much of a pack, though.”
“Doesn’t it?” answered Duval. “As a matter of fact, I’m not leaving, you see.”
“You...ain’t...leavin’!” cried Henry.
“I’m not leaving. There’s something in Moose Creek worth more to me than your hundred and eighty thousand dollars. However, come along and see that I deliver this satchel where it belongs.”
The rain had stopped. There was only the pattering of the water from the wet leaves, sometimes in single drops, sometimes in rattling showers.
“Pal,” burst out Henry shakily, “will you tell me the truth? You ain’t really meanin’ to take it away from me?” “I’m taking it away from you,” Duval stated.
“I didn’t think you was that low,” said Henry. “I can’t believe it still. You’re only jokin’ with me.”
“Follow me, then, and you’ll see.”
Henry, speechless with miserable astonishment, rode on at the side of Duval, never thinking of resistance to the man with him. Only, as they cut through the woods and came out on the road, he at one point checked in his horse, and cried aloud: “Not back to Broom! Not back to that rat of a man!”
“Hush, Henry,” Duval said. “When you call him names like that, you almost tempt me not to live up to my word. I promised him the money back if you went free.”
“Promised him!” shouted Henry. “Promised him! Besides, Kinkaid would’ve let me go for sayin’ who Duval is.”
His anger, his helplessness, forced the words from him, and Duval replied gently: “D’you think that Kinkaid really would have let you off, Henry? Don’t you know that he couldn’t? The most he could have done would have been to arrange a light sentence for you. And any sentence for safe-cracking would be long enough to see you die in stripes, old fellow. If Kinkaid lied to you, that’s no reason you should lie to yourself.”
To this, poor Henry was unable to make any rejoinder, and he rode on with his head fallen upon his breast.
They kept on up the road for a few miles, then swung aside, and so came down the bypath to the house of Broom.
It was lighted down one side. Voices issued dimly from it, and Duval, the satchel across his saddlebow, and old Henry not far behind him, rode up beside the nearest window.
It was unshuttered, and the blinds were undrawn, so that he could look freely in and there he saw Mr. Carson, his fat, rosy face quite pale and long with dismay, while active Mr. Broom, quick-turning as a rat, pranced up and down the room, talking with both hands and with a barking, squeaking voice.
Apparently he was rehearsing for the benefit of his partner the scene in the sheriff’s office, not as it had happened, but as Broom had first narrated it to the sheriff himself.
“I suppose it’s gone,” Carson said in a voice that Duval, pressing closer, could hear. “You have enough interest in the business to carry you along, but my share of that loss will about squeeze me out.”
“Your own fault!” shouted the unspeakable Broom. “Who told you to cut down expenses? Who told you to cut off that list of ailing paupers that call themselves your relatives? I told you. You wouldn’t listen. You’ve been bled white. A fool deserves to stew in his own folly, and you’re stewing now. Don’t ask me for sympathy. Not a penny’s worth of it, for I....”
The window here was raised by Duval. As it squeaked up and the moist air of the night blew in, Mr. Broom dropped with a groan of fear behind a chair, but Mr. Carson stood up and turned his face and his breast to the possible danger. One might have said that he was too slow-witted to pay any attention to such danger as was here.
However, it was at his feet that Duval cast the satchel, saying briefly: “Here’s the stuff back again. It was only Henry’s joke.”
Then he was off again into the veil of the night that had covered him even when he was speaking at the lighted window.
Yet he heard, behind him, sharp voices raised in great joy, and he smiled to himself as he went off through the dark.
Henry fell in beside him in an altered mood, and though he did not speak for some time, he eventually said: “Look here....”
“Well, Henry?” asked Duval.
“They’ve got the stuff safe back, then?”
“They have it safely back.”
“It was him,” Henry said in a puzzled tone. “I generally keep my promises, but to a rat like him....”
“Why, I understand perfectly,” Duval said.
“Well, now that it’s been given back to him, I’m pretty glad of it. It’s a sort of a funny weight off my mind.”
“Is it?”
“I mean, this way. Every penny that I spent of it, I’d have been sayin’ to myself that I was spendin’ another man’s money.”
Duval chuckled. “How much money did you ever spend in your life,” he asked, “that was really your own?”
“That ain’t what I mean,” persisted the thief. “I mean...the money that I spent before, it was stole honestly, if you know what I mean, old-timer?”
“Yes, I know what you mean.”
“Not promised back, after I had it. Or anything like that.”
“Certainly,” said Duval. “Not on your conscience, you mean? You forgive me then, Henry?”
“Here’s my hand, if you can find it in the dark.”
“I never shook hands with more pleasure in my entire life,” Duval said cordially. “We’ll have no trouble after this, Henry. We understand each other. But now tell me. What are your plans?”
“I dunno. I ain’t made any very clear plans, except to skin out from here. I’ll go just where you go, I suppose.”
“Not that, because I stay here, and this is likely to be a pretty hot corner for you, Henry.”
Henry groaned. “I’ve spoiled your play here. You had everything going smooth, and settled down, and quiet, and happy, and I’ve broken everything up for you. I’ve been a curse on you, and that’s the fact, sir.”
“Tush,” said Duval gently. “We won’t talk about that. As a matter of fact, I probably couldn’t have lasted. It was too happy to last. A man can’t live a lie, Henry, even if it’s an innocent lie. He has to be himself, and sooner or later I should have been found out. Don’t let your part in this trouble you.”
“But you...you ain’t really goin’ to stay on here?”
“Yes, I’ll stay on here.”
“You mean it?”
“Yes, I mean it.”
“But now they’ll be after you as thick as hornets.”
“What have they against me?”
“That you kept a professional thief in your house, and so they’ll say that you’re a professional thief yourself, the fools.”
“Well, perhaps they will. Talking doesn’t break the skin, though, as you ought to know.”
“I don’t like it,” muttered Henry, and, swinging his horse closer to the mare, he went on: “You’d better slide out with me. I know how to make tracks from here so’s they’ll never guess.”
“They’ll know that I’ve run, though, and that’s the same as a confession of guilt. Isn’t it?”
“Dang the guilt! What’s the guilt that they could trace back to you?”
“I mean, I’ll appear guilty, and beaten, and afraid.”
“Mister....”
“Not even in the dark, Henry. Not that name even to ourselves.”
“All right then. I won’t say it. But it looks to me as though you’re running a fine chance of bein’ tagged by a Forty-Five-caliber slug
one of these days. I’ve had my chance to look around the world and see my share of the hard ones, but I never saw a harder one than Kinkaid. You’ve beaten him a couple of times at this game, but maybe he’ll have his innings before the wind-up. And he’ll only need to get you once under his gun. He won’t stop to think twice, if he ever gets the upper hand.”
“Would he murder me, Henry?”
“Would a cat eat cream?”
“He would, I think,” Duval said thoughtfully. “I think he’d kill me out of hand. As a matter of fact, for the first time in my life I’m afraid of a man...afraid of the marshal. But still I have to stay, even though I know the danger.”
“Will you tell me why you have to stay?”
“I can’t tell you. I can’t begin to tell you, Henry. You’ve lived past certain things that still are real to me. Things that are as much a part of me now as my own blood.”
Henry was silent for a moment, and then he muttered: “There’s such a thing as playin’ a game till it ain’t a game any longer. It’s real. And you’re that man, I suppose.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The full noon shone down upon Moose Creek. Even the lizards that lay in the sun on the walls, now slithered away into the shadows as the heat of the day began to take effect, and the pigs could not work deep enough into their wallows. The thirstiest cows would not go out across the flare of the sun-scorched fields to find the water, and the sheep lay passive in the low, stifling shade of the brush. The white dust of the main street of Moose Creek became incandescent, and as Cherry stepped in it, fetlock-deep, she winced from the scalding that her dainty flesh received.
She was stopped in front of Pete’s Place, where Duval dismounted. He looked up and down the street, but not a form was stirring. Only, in the distance he heard the mellow clangor of the blacksmith’s hammer, sounding musically far away and soothing.
There were two or three other noticeable things, chiefly faint shadows that stirred behind windows, discreetly disappearing; these, he knew, were the heads of the curious who had looked out upon him, but who did not wish to be seen.
It meant much to him, for it told him that he had become one outlawed from the notice of frank, everyday life. He was a banned and forbidden thing and he could guess that it was because of the arrest and then of the flight of Henry. That had damned him, with the whispers concerning beautiful Marian Lane as a background against which the more recent and spectacular action was placed in relief.
Having taken heed of all that was to be seen, Duval turned back into the saloon, and, passing through the door, he saw Charlie Nash, not at the bar, but seated at a small table with his head in his hands.
He started toward Charlie with a smile, but Pete, behind the bar, raised a warning hand and shook his head.
That instant Charlie looked up and, seeing Duval, rose from his chair, shoved his hat back on his head, and came straight up to the older man. Not a word of greeting did he speak, and Duval wondered.
Some of his doubt was removed by the action of Pete who, without waiting longer, hurried down the length of the bar, opened the door that led up to his room, and disappeared. This had happened before Charlie spoke a word. And when he spoke, it was to say in a harsh, husky voice: “Who are you?”
“My name,” he said, “is Duval. I am a citizen of the United States. I generally vote the Republican ticket. My height is five feet eleven. My weight is a hundred and sixty-five pounds. My hair is brown, and my eyes are gray. Nose, aquiline. Mouth...medium. Chin...medium. Characteristic marks, hardly any worth mentioning. Does that answer you, Charlie?”
Charlie Nash groaned. “I might’ve known that it would be something like that,” he said.
But he did not give back. The aggressiveness somehow remained in his attitude.
“What else can I tell you, Charlie?”
“A lot, if you’ll talk.”
“Oh, I’ll talk.”
“Then tell me the straight of it...heaven knows that I haven’t been asking questions about it before...but whatcha mean about Marian Lane.”
“She’ll tell you a lot better than I can, Charlie.”
“How can I ask her? You know that. I’m asking you.”
“I know you’re asking me. What’s your right to ask, Charlie?”
“The right of loving her. The right of having stood to be your friend. If those two reasons ain’t enough...,” he continued, raising his voice.
“Speak soft, Charlie,” interrupted the other. “When a gent begins to bellow, it makes his temper climb up the scale. The old man used to say that a loud voice made a hard fist. If you want to know about Marian Lane, will you come over to the store with me? I’m gonna talk to her now.”
“Are you trying to make a fool of me?”
“Me? Not a bit. I’m going over there to find out what I can do with her.”
“Duval, you ain’t stringing her? You mean to marry her?”
“What I mean don’t count much with her. It’s what she means that seems to be a lot more important.”
Charlie laughed sardonically. “As if you couldn’t twist her or anybody around your finger. Only...what lies in front of you, Duval? What’re you gonna offer to her? Is it straight that Henry was a crook? Are you a crook, too? Where’d you get your money? Where’d you come from? What’s behind you? Where are you going? Is it a fact that Kinkaid is after you?”
“Why, you want me to talk and talk,” Duval said, smiling. “Fact is, everything hangs on what Marian says to me.”
Charlie Nash, outraged, furiously gritted his teeth.
“Is it because you care about her, Duval? Ain’t it because she’s the only one in Moose Creek that’s stood out much against you? Ain’t it because you wanna show how strong you are with women, the same as you’ve showed how strong you are with men?”
Duval, flushing a little, stepped back a trifle. “I’m a patient sort of a gent, Charlie,” he cautioned.
“But you’ve reached your limit, about?” Charlie suggested, unafraid.
“About.”
“That’s to put a chill up my spine, I reckon?”
“Man, I ain’t aiming to chill you. Whatcha want, Charlie?”
“Reasonable talk and answers to my talk.”
“Or?”
“Or I’ll fight.”
“I don’t wanna fight you, Charlie,” Duval said as gently as could be.
“I know you don’t,” said the boy, a slight tremor shaking his body and his voice. “You’d rather face me down. Maybe that’s the way that it would end. But either you come clean to me, or else I’m gonna block your game with Marian. That’s the fact.”
“As far as running away with her goes,” Duval said, “I ain’t likely to do that, old son, till tonight. Suppose you come up and have supper with me in my shack. Will you do that?”
“If you’ll talk.”
“I’ll talk, well enough.”
“I’ll come,” said Charlie.
“Then have a drink with me.” Duval went behind the bar. “What’ll it be, partner? Red-eye or beer? Or red-eye with a beer chaser? What’ll you have?”
“I’ll eat with you tonight,” said Charlie. “I won’t drink with you now. I’m sick and sore inside of my heart, Duval. I dunno where I stand. I ain’t no use to myself. I ain’t no use to the girl I want for a wife. But, by gosh, I’m gonna try to do one thing, even if I die for it.”
He turned his back and walked from the saloon, while Duval looked earnestly after him.
Then he poured out hardly more than a tablespoonful of whiskey and stood with the glass raised, facing the new mirror, which had just been installed to take the place of the one that Charlie had smashed during his memorable session in this barroom. The frame was not yet painted, and the newness of it made Duval wonder, for it was a striking proof of the short time he had been in Moose
Creek.
In this position, he regarded his own pale face with much serious earnestness, and finally made the little upward gesture of a man offering a toast, then swallowed the liquor. After this he tossed off a small chaser of water and started for the door. A voice called cautiously behind him, as though fearing lest an unexpected ear might overhear it. It was Pete, coming toward him with an extended hand, which Duval freely gripped.
“Duval,” Pete said, “I dunno what’s gonna come of all of this. Somehow, I work it out that there ain’t gonna be a long stay for you with us, after all this trouble. When I first seen you come into this here bar, I aimed to say that you wasn’t the kind that waited long around one joint. You looked like them that fly fast and don’t nest long. But when you leave us, Duval, whenever that may be, I wanna say that my wishes go along with you. Good luck to you, man, a horse that’ll never quit, and a gun that’ll never miss!”
With that farewell in his ears, Duval went out into the street, knowing that the second sense of Pete had not been wrong.
The end of his Moose Creek career was before him. Even now he was staying under the shadow of a great danger, and only a perverse stubbornness made him remain.
When he had passed the swinging door, he could not help halting for a moment, with the bitter blast of the sun in his face, and eating through the coat into his shoulders. He looked up and down, as though at any moment he expected a cavalcade to turn one of the corners and come careening down upon him.
But there was no one in sight, no sound. All was still.
He shaded his eyes and, without knowing why, looked up as close as he could toward the sun. High above him he saw small specks against the sky, slowly circling. He knew what they were, and, in spite of his nerves of chilled steel, Duval shivered a little.
Then he crossed the street rapidly, and entered the store of Marian Lane.
Chapter Thirty-Six
It was a rush hour in the Lane store, for there were three or four patrons, including a girl with a braided pigtail, waiting to buy red-striped peppermint candies. The others completed their purchases in haste and left the store at once, with their eyes discreetly lowered to the floor, but the little girl, as she went out with her mouth stuffed with the candies, backed through the door, still gaping openly at the most famous man of Moose Creek.
