by Max Brand
CHAPTER XXIV
DOCTOR BYRNE LOOKS INTO THE PAST
The black head of Barry, the brown head of Randall Byrne, the goldenhead of Kate Cumberland, were all bowed around the limp body of BlackBart. Buck Daniels, still gasping for breath, stood reeling nearby.
"Let me attempt to resuscitate the animal," offered the doctor.
He was met by a blank look from Barry. The hair of the man was scorched,his skin was blistered and burned. Only his hands remained uninjured,and these continued to move over the body of the great dog. KateCumberland was on her knees over the brute.
"Is it fatal, Dan?" she asked. "Is there no hope for Bart?"
There was no answer from Barry, and she attempted to raise the fallen,lifeless head of the animal; but instantly a strong arm darted out andbrushed her hands away. Those hands fell idly at her sides and her headwent back as though she had been struck across the face. She foundherself looking up into the angry eyes of Randall Byrne. He reached downand raised her to her feet; there was no colour in her face, no life inher limbs.
"There's nothing more to be done here, apparently," said the doctorcoldly. "Suppose we take your father and go back to the house."
She made neither assent nor dissent. Dan Barry had finished a swift,deft bandage and stopped the bleeding of the dog's wounds. Now he raisedhis head and his glance slipped rapidly over the faces of the doctor andthe girl and rested on Buck Daniels. There was no flash of kindlythanks, no word of recognition. His right hand raised to his cheek, andrested there, and in his eyes came that flare of yellow hate. BuckDaniels shrank back until he was lost in the crowd. Then he turned andstumbled back towards the house.
Instantly, Barry began to work at expanding and depressing the lungs ofthe huge animal as he might have worked to bring a man back to life.
"Watch him!" whispered the doctor to Kate Cumberland. "He is closer tothat dog--that wolf, it looks like--than he has ever been to any humanbeing!"
She would not answer, but she turned her head quickly away from the manand his beast.
"Are you afraid to watch?" challenged Byrne, for his anger at Barry'sblunt refusals still made his blood hot. "When your father lay atdeath's door was he half so anxious as he is now? Did he work so hard,by half? See how his eyes are fixed on the muzzle of the beast as if hewere studying a human face!"
"No, no!" breathed the girl.
"I fell you, look!" commanded the doctor. "For there's the solution ofthe mystery. No mystery at all. Barry is simply a man who is closer akinto the brute forces in nature. See! By the eternal heavens, he'sdragging that beast--that dumb beast--back from the door of death!"
Barry had ceased his rapid manipulations, and turned the big dog backupon its side. Now the eyes of Black Bart opened, and winked shut again.Now the master kneeled at the head of the beast and took the scarred,shaggy head between his hands.
"Bart!" he commanded.
Not a stir in the long, black body. The stallion edged a pace closer,dropped his velvet muzzle, and whinnied softly at the very ear of thedog. Still, there was not an answering quiver.
"Bart!" called the man again, and there was a ring of wild grief--offear--in his cry.
"Do you hear?" said Byrne savagely, at the ear of the girl. "Did youever use such a tone with a human being? Ever?"
"Take me away!" she murmured. "I'm sick--sick at heart. Take me away!"
Indeed, she was scarcely sure of her poise, and tottered where shestood. Doctor Byrne slipped his arm about her and led her away,supporting half her weight. They went slowly, by small, soft steps,towards the house, and before they reached it, he knew that she wasweeping. But if there was sadness in Byrne, there was also a great joy.He was afire, for there is a flamelike quality in hope. Loss of bloodand the stifling smoke, rather than a mortal injury or the touch offire, had brought Black Bart close to death, but now that his breathingwas restored, and almost normal, he gained rapidly. One instant helingered on the border between life and death; the next, the brute'seyes opened and glittered with dim recognition up towards Dan, and helicked the hand which supported his head. At Dan's direction, a blanketwas brought, and after Dan had lifted Black Bart upon it, four menraised the corners of the blanket and carried the burden towards thehouse. One of the cowpunchers went ahead bearing the light. This was thesight which Doctor Byrne and Kate Cumberland saw from the veranda of theranch-house as they turned and looked back before going in.
"A funeral procession," suggested the doctor.
"No," she answered positively. "If Black Bart were dead, Dan wouldn'tallow any hands save his own to touch the body. No, Black Bart is alive!Yet, it's impossible."
The word "impossible," however, was gradually dropping from thevocabulary of Randall Byrne. True, the wolf-dog had seemed dead pastrecovery and across the eyes of Byrne came a vision of the dead risingfrom their graves. Yet he merely shook his head and said nothing.
"Ah!" she broke in. "Look!"
The procession drew nearer, heading towards the back of the big house,and now they saw that Dan Barry walked beside the body of Black Bart, asmile on his lifted face. They disappeared behind the back of thehouse.
Byrne heard the girl murmuring, more to herself than to him: "Once hewas like that all the time."
"Like what?" he asked bluntly.
She paused, and then her hand dropped lightly on his arm. He could notsee more than a vague outline of her in the night, only the dull glimmerof her face as she turned her head, and the faint whiteness of her hand.
"Let's say good-night," she answered, at length. "Our little worlds havetoppled about our heads to-night--all your theories, it seems, and, Godknows, all that I have hoped. Why should we stay here and make ourselvesmiserable by talk?"
"But because we have failed," he said steadily, "is that a reason weshould creep off and brood over our failure in silence? No, let's talkit out, man to man."
"You have a fine courage," said the girl. "But what is there we cansay?"
He answered: "For my part, I am not so miserable as you think. For Ifeel as if this night had driven us closer together, you see; and I'vecaught a perspective on everything that has happened here."
"Tell me what you know."
"Only what I think I know. It may be painful to hear."
"I'm very used to pain."
"Well, a moment ago, when Barry was walking beside his dog, smiling, youmurmured that he once was like that always. It gave me light. So I'dsay that there was a time when Dan Barry lived here with you and yourfather. Am I right?"
"Yes, for years and years."
"And in those times he was not greatly different from other men. Not onthe surface."
"No."
"You came to be very fond of him."
"We were to marry," answered Kate Cumberland, and Byrne winced.
He went on: "Then something happened--suddenly--that took him away fromyou, and you did not see him again until to-night. Am I right?"
"Yes. I thought you must have heard the story--from the outside. I'lltell you the truth. My father found Dan Barry wandering across the hillsyears ago. He was riding home over the range and he heard a strange andbeautiful whistling, and when he looked up he saw on the western ridge,walking against the sky, a tattered figure of a boy. He rode up andasked the boy his name. He learned it was Dan Barry--Whistling Dan, hewas called. But the boy could not, or would not, tell how he came to bethere in the middle of the range without a horse. He merely said that hecame from 'over there,' and waved his hand to the south and east. Thatwas all. He didn't seem to be alarmed because he was alone, and yet heapparently knew nothing of the country; he was lost in this terriblecountry where a man could wander for days without finding a house, andyet the boy was whistling as he walked! So Dad took him home and sentout letters all about--to the railroad in particular--to find out ifsuch a boy was missing.
"He received no answer. In the meantime he gave Dan a room in the house;and I remember how Dan sat at the table the first night--I was a verylittle gi
rl then--and how I laughed at his strange way of eating. Hisknife was the only thing he was interested in and he made it serve forknife, fork, and spoon, and he held the meat in his fingers while he cutit. The next morning he was missing. One of Dad's range riders picked upDan several miles to the north, walking along, whistling gayly. The nextmorning he was missing again and was caught still farther away. Afterthat Dad had a terrible scene with him--I don't know exactly whathappened--but Dan promised to run away no more, and ever since then Dadhas been closer to Dan than anyone else.
"So Dan grew up. From the time I could first distinctly remember, he wasvery gentle and good-natured, but he was different, always. After awhile he got Black Bart, you know, and then he went out with a halterand captured Satan. Think of capturing a wild mustang with nothing but ahalter! He played around with them so much that I was jealous of them.So I kept with them until Bart and Satan were rather used to me. Bartwould even play with me now and then when Dan wasn't near. And sofinally Dan and I were to be married.
"Dad didn't like the idea. He was afraid of what Dan might become. Andhe was right. One day, in a saloon that used to stand on that hill overthere, Dan had a fight--his first fight--with a man who had struck himacross the mouth for no good reason. That man was Jim Silent. Of courseyou've heard of him?"
"Never."
"He was a famous long-rider--an outlaw with a very black record. At theend of that fight he struck Dan down with a chair and escaped. I wentdown to Dan when I heard of the fight--Black Bart led me down, to beexact--but Dan would not come back to the house, and he'd have no moreto do with anyone until he had found Jim Silent. I can't tell youeverything that happened. Finally he caught Jim Silent and killedhim--with his bare hands. Buck Daniels saw it. Then Dan came back to us,but on the first night he began to grow restless. It was last Fall--thewild geese were flying south--and while they were honking in the sky Dangot up, said good-bye, and left us. We have never seen him again untilto-night. All we knew was that he had ridden south--after the wildgeese."
A long silence fell between them, for the doctor was thinking hard.
"And when he came back," he said, "Barry did not know you? I mean youwere nothing to him?"
"You were there," said the girl, faintly.
"It is perfectly clear," said Byrne. "If it were a little morecommonplace it might be puzzling, but being so extraordinary it clearsitself up. Did you really expect the dog, the wolf-dog, Black Bart, toremember you?"
"I may have expected it."
"But you were not surprised, of course!"
"Naturally not."
"Yet you see that Dan Barry--Whistling Dan, you call him--was closer toBlack Bart than he was to you?"
"Why should I see that?"
"You watched him a moment ago when he was leaning over the dog."
He watched her draw her dressing gown closer about her, as though thecold bit more keenly then.
She said simply: "Yes, I saw."
"Don't you see that he is simply more in tune with the animal world? Andit's really no more reasonable to expect Black Bart to remember you thanit is to expect Dan Barry to remember you? It's quite plain. When you goback to the beginning man was simply an animal, without the highersenses, as we call them. He was simply a brute, living in trees or incaves. Afterwards he grew into the thing we all know. But why notimagine a throw-back into the earlier instincts? Why not imagine thecreature devoid of the impulses of mind, the thing which we call man,and see the splendid animal? You saw in Dan Barry simply a biologicalsport--the freak--the thing which retraces the biological progress andcomes close to the primitive. But of course you could not realise this.He seemed a man, and you accepted him as a man. In reality he was nomore a man than Black Bart is a man. He had the face and form of a man,but his instincts were as old as the ages. The animal world obeys him.Satan neighs in answer to his whistle. The wolf-dog licks his hand atthe point of death. There is the profound difference, always. You try toreconcile him with other men; you give him the attributes of other men.Open your eyes; see the truth: that he is no more akin to man than BlackBart is like a man. And when you give him your affection, MissCumberland, _you are giving your affection to a wild wolf!_ Do youbelieve me?"
He knew that she was shaken. He could feel it, even without thetestimony of his eyes to witness. He went on, speaking with greatrapidity, lest she should escape from the influence which he had alreadygained over her.
"I felt it when I first saw him--a certain nameless kinship withelemental forces. The wind blew through the open door--it was Dan Barry.The wild geese called from the open sky--for Dan Barry. These are thethings which lead him. These the forces which direct him. You have lovedhim; but is love merely a giving? No, you have seen in him a man, but Isee in him merely the animal force."
She said after a moment: "Do you hate him--you plead against him sopassionately?"
He answered: "Can you hate a thing which is not human? No, but you candread it. It escapes from the laws which bind you and which bind me.What standards govern it? How can you hope to win it? Love? What beautyis there in the world to appeal to such a creature except the beauty ofthe marrow-bone which his teeth have the strength to snap?"
"Ah, listen!" murmured the girl. "Here is your answer!"
And Doctor Randall Byrne heard a sound like the muted music of theviolin, thin and small and wonderfully penetrating. He could not tell,at first, what it might be. For it was as unlike the violin as it waslike the bow and the rosined strings. Then he made out, surely, that itwas the whistling of a human being.
It followed no tune, no reasoned theme. The music was beautiful in itsown self. It rose straight up like the sky-lark from the ground, sheerup against the white light of the sky, and there it sang againstheaven's gate. He had never heard harmony like it. He would never againhear such music, so thin and yet so full that it went through andthrough him, until he felt the strains take a new, imitative life withinhim. He would have whistled the strains himself, but he could not followthem. They escaped him, they soared above him. They followed no law orrhythm. They flew on wings and left him far below. The girl moved awayfrom him as if led by an invisible hand, and now she stood at theextremity of the porch. He followed her.
"Do you hear?" she cried, turning to him.
"What is it?" asked the doctor.
"It is he! Don't you understand?"
"Barry? Yes! But what does the whistling mean; is it for his wolf-dog?"
"I don't know," she answered quickly. "All I understand is that it isbeautiful. Where are your theories and explanations now, Doctor Byrne?".
"It _is_ beautiful--God knows!--but doesn't the wolf-dog understand itbetter than either you or I?"
She turned and faced Byrne, standing very close, and when she spokethere was something in her voice which was like a light. In spite of thedark he could guess at every varying shade of her expression.
"To the rest of us," she murmured, "Dan has nothing but silence, andhardly a glance. Buck saved his life to-night, and yet Dan rememberednothing except the blow which had been struck. And now--now he pours outall the music in his soul for a dumb beast. Listen!"
He saw her straighten herself and stand taller.
"Then through the wolf--I'll conquer through the dumb beast!"
She whipped past Byrne and disappeared into the house; at the sameinstant the whistling, in the midst of a faint, high climax, broke,shivered, and was ended. There was only the darkness and the silencearound Byrne, and the unsteady wind against his face.
