by Max Brand
CHAPTER XVII
BUCK MAKES HIS GET-AWAY
Straight from the room of the dead man, Fatty Matthews had hurried downto the bar, and there he stepped into the silence and found the batteryof eyes all turned upon that calm figure at the end of the room. Uponthis man he trotted, breathing hard, and his fat sides jostled up anddown as he ran. According to Brownsville, there were only two thingsthat could make Fatty run: a gun or the sight of a drink. But all maximserr. When he reached Barry he struck him on the shoulder with a heavyhand. That is, he struck at the shoulder, but as if the shadow of thefalling hand carried a warning before it, at the same time that itdropped Barry swerved around in his chair. Not a hurried movement, butin some mysterious manner his shoulder was not in the way of the plumpfist. It struck, instead, upon the back of the chair, and the marshalcursed bitterly.
"Stranger," he said hotly, "I got one thing to say: Jerry Strann hasjust died upstairs. In ten seconds Mac Strann will be down here lookin'for _you_!"
He stepped back, humming desperately to cover his wheezing, but Barrycontinued to braid the horsehair with deft fingers.
"I got a double knot that's kind of new," he said. "Want to watch metie it?"
The deputy sheriff turned on the crowd.
"Boys," he exclaimed, waving his arms, "he's crazy. You heard what hesaid. You know I've give him fair warning. If we got to dig his grave inBrownsville, is it my fault? It ain't!" He stepped to the bar andpounded upon it. "O'Brien, for God's sake, a drink!"
It was a welcome suggestion to the entire nervous crowd, but while theglasses spun across the bar Buck Daniels walked slowly down the lengthof the barroom towards Barry. His face was a study which few men couldhave solved; unless there had been someone present who had seen a manwalk to his execution. Beside Dan Barry he stopped and watched the agilehands at work. There was a change in the position of Barry now, for hehad taken the chair facing the door and the entire crowd; Buck Danielsstood opposite. The horsehair plied back and forth. And Daniels notedthe hands, lean, tapering like the fingers of a girl of sixteen. Theywere perfectly steady; they were the hands of one who had struggled, inlife, with no greater foe than ennui.
"Dan," said Buck, and there was a quiver of excitement in his voice,like the tremor of a piano string long after it has been struck. "Dan, Ibeen thinking about something and now I'm ready to tell you what it is."
Barry looked up in slow surprise.
Now the face of Buck Daniels held what men have called a "deadlypallor," that pallor which comes over one who is cornered and about tofight for his life. He leaned closer, resting one hand upon the edge ofthe table, so that his face was close to Dan Barry.
"Barry," he said, "I'm askin' you for the last time: Will you get yourhoss and ride back to Kate Cumberland with me?"
Dan Barry smiled his gentle, apologetic smile.
"I don't no ways see how I can, Buck."
"Then," said Buck through his teeth, "of all the lyin' hounds in theworld you're the lyin'est and meanest and lowest. Which they ain't wordsto tell you what I think of you. Take this instead!"
And the hand which rested on the table darted up and smote Dan Barry onthe cheek, a tingling blow. With the same motion which started his handfor the blow, Buck Daniels turned on his heel and stepped a pace or twotowards the centre of the room.
There was not a man in the room who had not heard the last words of BuckDaniels, and not a man who had not seen the blow. Everyone of them hadseen, or heard accurately described, how the slender stranger beat JerryStrann to the draw and shot him down in that same place. Such a moancame from them as when many men catch their breath with pain, and with asimultaneous movement those who were in line with Buck Daniels and Barryleaped back against the bar on one side and against the wall on theother. Their eyes, fascinated, held on the face of Barry, and they sawthe pale outline which the fingers of Daniels had left on the cheek ofthe other. But if horror was the first thing they felt, amazement wasthe next. For Dan Barry sat bolt erect in his chair, staring in anastonishment too great for words. His right hand hung poised andmoveless just above the butt of his gun; his whole posture was that ofone in the midst of an action, suspended there, frozen to stone. Theywaited for that poised hand to drop, for the slender fingers to clutchthe butt of the gun, for the convulsive jerk that would bring out thegleaming barrel, the explosion, the spurt of smoke, and Buck Danielslurching forward to his face on the floor.
But that hand did not move; and Buck Daniels? Standing there with hisback to the suspended death behind him, he drew out Durham and brownpapers, without haste, rolled a cigarette, and reached to a hip pocket.
At that move Dan Barry started. His hand darted down and fastened on hisgun, and he leaned forward in his chair with the yellow glimmering lightflaring up in his eyes. But the hand of Buck Daniels came out from hiship bearing a match. He raised his leg, scratched the match, there was ablue spurt of flame, and Buck calmly lighted his cigarette and startedtowards the door, sauntering.
The instant the swinging doors closed Barry started from his chair witha strange cry--none of them had ever heard the like from human lips--forthere was grief in it, and above all there was a deadly eagerness. So ahungry man might cry out at the sight of food. Down the length of thebarroom he darted and was drawing his gun as he whipped through thedoors. A common rush followed him, and those who reached the open firstsaw Buck Daniels leaning far forward in his saddle and spurringdesperately into the gloom of the night. Instantly he was only atwinkling figure in the shadows, and the beat of the hoofs rattled backat them. Dan Barry stood with his gun poised high for a second or more.Then he turned, dropped the gun into the holster, and with the samestrange, unearthly cry of eagerness, he raced off in the direction ofthe barns.
There were some who followed him even then, and this is what theyreported to incredulous ears when they returned. Barry ran straight forthe left hand corral and wrenched at the gate, which appeared to besecured by a lock and chain. Seeing that it would not give way he ranaround to the barn, and came out again carrying a saddle and bridle.These he tossed over the high fence into the corral. Then he picked up aloose scantling and with it pried and wrenched off the top bar of thefence in one section and vaulted into the enclosure.
The black stallion had whinnied once or twice during this time and thegreat black, shaggy dog had come snarling and whining about the feet ofhis master. Now the stranger tossed on the saddle and cinched it withamazing speed, sprang onto his mount, and urged it across to the otherside of the corral. Up to that moment no one in the little crowd ofwatchers had suspected the intention of the rider. For the fence, evenafter the removal of the top bar, was nearly six feet in height. Butwhen Barry took his horse to the far side of the corral and then swunghim about facing the derailed section, it was plain that he meant toattempt to jump at that place. Even then, as O'Brien explained later,and many a time, the thing was so impossible that he could not believehis eyes. There was a dreamlike element to the whole event. And like aphantom in a vision he saw the black horse start into a sharp gallop;saw the great dog sail across the fence first; saw the horse and ridershoot into the air against the stars; heard the click of hoofs againstthe top rail; heard the thud of hoofs on the near side of the fence, andthen the horseman flashed about the corner of the barn and in an instanthis hoofs were beating a far distant tattoo.
As for the watchers, they returned in a dead silence to the barroom andthey had hardly entered when Mac Strann stalked through the doors behindthem; he went straight to O'Brien.
"Somewhere about," he said in his thick, deep voice, "they's a man namedDan Barry. Where is he?"
And O'Brien answered: "Mac, he was sittin' down there at that tableuntil two minutes ago, but where he is now I ain't any idea."
The tall, skeleton form of Haw-Haw Langley materialised behind MacStrann, and his face was contorted with anger.
"If he was here two minutes ago," he said, "he ain't more than twominutes away."
"Which way?" a
sked Mac Strann.
"North," answered a score of voices.
O'Brien stepped up to Mac Strann. He said: "Mac, we know what you got inyour mind. We know what you've lost, and there ain't any of us thatain't sorry for Jerry--and for you. But, Mac, I can give you the bestadvice you ever heard in your life: Keep off'n the trail of Barry!"
Haw-Haw Langley added at the ear of Mac Strann: "That was Jerry's advicewhen he lay dyin'. An' it's my advice, too. Mac, Barry ain't a safe manto foller!"
"Haw-Haw," answered Mac Strann, "Will you gimme a hand saddlin' my hoss?I got an appointment, an' I'm two minutes late already."
