by Max Brand
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE STORM
When they rode out of the town the wet sand squashed under the feet oftheir horses and splashed up on their riding boots and their slickers.It even spotted their faces here and there, and a light brown spraydarted out to right and left of the falling hoofs. For all the streetsof Elkhead were running shallow rivers, with dark, swift currents, andwhen they left the little town the landscape was shut out by the fallingtorrents. It made a strange and shifting panorama, for the rain variedin its density now and again, and as it changed hills which had beenquite blotted out leaped close upon them, like living things, and thensprang back again into the mist.
So heavy was that tropical fall of water that the horses were botheredby the beating of the big drops, and shook their heads and stampedfretfully under the ceaseless bombardment. Indeed, when one stretchedout his hand the drops stung him as if with lashes of tiny whips. Therewas no wind, no thunder, no flash of lightning, only the tremendousdownpour which blended earth and sky in a drab, swift river.
The air was filled with parallel lines, as in some pencil drawings--notlike ordinary rain, but as if the sky had changed into a vastwatering-spout and was sending down a continuous flood from a myriadholes. It was hard to look up through the terrific downpour, for itblinded one and whipped the face and made one breathless, but now andagain a puff of the rare wind would lift the sodden brim of the sombreroand then one caught a glimpse of the low-hanging clouds, with thenearest whiffs of black mist dragging across the top of a hill. Withoutnoticeable currents of wind, that mass of clouds was shiftingslowly--with a sort of rolling motion, across the sky. And the weight ofthe rain forced the two to bend their heads and stare down to where theface of the earth was alive with the gliding, brown waters, whosesurface was threshed into a continual foam. To speak to each otherthrough the uproar, they had to cup their hands about their lips andshout. Then again the rainfall around them fell away to a drizzling mistand the beating of the downpour sounded far away, and they weresurrounded by distant walls of noise. So they came to the McDuffy place.
It was a helpless ruin, long abandoned. Not an iota of the roofremained. The sheds for the horses had dropped to the earth; but thewalls of the house still remained standing, in part, with the emptywindows looking out with a mocking promise of the shelter which was notwithin. Upon this hollow shack the rain beat with redoubled fury, andeven before they could make out the place through the blankets of rain,they heard the hollow drumming. For there were times, oddly enough, whenany sound would carry a great distance through the crashing of the rain.
A wind now sprung up and at once veered the rain from its perpendicularfall. It slashed them in the face under the drooping brims of theirsombreros, so they drew into the shelter of the highest part of thestanding wall. Still some of the rain struck them, but the major part ofit was shunted over their heads. Moreover, the wall acted as a sort ofsounding board, catching up every odd noise from the storm-beaten plainbeyond. They could speak to each other now without effort.
"D'you think," asked Haw-Haw Langley, pressing his reeking horse alittle closer to Mac Strann, "that he'll come out after us in a rainlike this?"
But simple-minded Mac Strann lifted his head and peered through thethick curtains of rain.
"D'you think," he parried, "that Jerry could maybe look through all thisand see what I'm doin' to-day?"
It made Haw-Haw Langley grin, but peering more closely and observingthat there was no mockery in the face of the giant, he wiped out hisgrin with a scrubbing motion of his wet hand and peered closely into theface of his companion.
"They ain't any doubt of it," he said reassuringly. "He'll know what youdo, Mac. What was it that Pale Annie said to you?"
"Wanted me not to meet Barry. Said that Barry had once cleaned up agang of six."
"And here we are only two."
"You ain't to fight!" warned Mac Strann sharply. "It'll be man to man,Haw-Haw."
"But he might not notice that," cried Haw-Haw, and he caressed hisscrawny neck as though he already felt fingers closing about hiswindpipe. "Him bein' used to fight crowds, Mac. Did you think of that?"
"I never asked you to come," responded Mac Strann.
"Mac," cried Haw-Haw in a sudden alarm, "s'pose you wasn't to win.S'pose you wasn't able to keep him away from me?"
The numb lips of Mac Strann sprawled in an ugly smile, but he made noother answer.
"_You_ don't think you'll lose," hurried on Haw-Haw, "but neither didthem six that Pale Annie was tellin' about, most like. But they did!They lost; but if you lose what'll happen to me?"
"They ain't no call for you to stay here," said Mac Strann with utterindifference.
Haw-Haw answered quickly: "I wouldn't go--I wouldn't miss it fornothin'. Ain't I come all this way to see it--I mean to help? Would Ifall down on you now, Mac? No, I wouldn't!"
And twisting those bony fingers together he burst once more into thatrattling, unhuman laughter which all the Three B's knew so well anddreaded as the dying dread the sight of the circling buzzard above.
"Stop laughin'!" cried Mac Strann with sudden anger. "Damn you, stoplaughin'!"
The other peered upon Mac Strann with incredulous delight, his broadmouth gaping to that thirsted grin of enjoyment.
"You ain't gettin' nervous, Mac?" he queried, and thrust his face closerto make sure. "You ain't bothered, Mac? You ain't doubtin' how this'llturn out?" There was no answer and so he replied to himself: "I knowwhat done it to you. I seen it myself. It was that yaller light in hiseyes, Mac. My God, it come up there out of nothin' and it wasn't a lightthat ought to come in no man's eyes. It was like I'd woke up at nightwith a cold weight on my chest and found two snakes' eyes glitterin'close to my face. Makes me shivery, like, jest to think of it now. D'younotice that, Mac?"
"I'm tired of talkin'," said Mac Strann hoarsely, "damned tired!"
And so saying he swung his great head slowly around and glared atHaw-Haw. The latter shrank away with an undulatory motion in his saddle.And when the head of Mac Strann turned away again the broad mouth begangibbering: "It's gettin' him like it done me. He's scared, scared,scared--even Mac Strann!"
He broke off, for Mac Strann had jerked up his head and said in astrangely muffled voice: "What was that?"
The bullet head of Haw-Haw Langley leaned to one side, and hisglittering eyes rolled up while he listened.
"Nothin'!" he said, "I don't hear nothin'!"
"Listen again!" cried Mac Strann in that same cautious voice, as of onewhispering in the night in the house of the enemy. "It's like a voice inthe wind. It comes down the wind. D'ye hear now--now--now?"
It was, indeed, the faintest of faint sounds when Haw-Haw caught it. Itwas, in the roar of the rain, as indistinct as some distant light on thehorizon which may come either from a rising star or from the window of ahouse. But it had a peculiar quality of its own, even as the house-lightwould be tinged with yellow when the stars are cold and white. A smalland distant sound, and yet it cut through the crashing of the storm moreand more clearly; someone rode through the rain whistling.
"It's him!" gasped Haw-Haw Langley. "My God A'mighty, Mac, he'swhistlin'! It ain't possible!"
He reined his horse closer to the wall, listening with mouth agape.
He shrilled suddenly: "What if he should hit us both, seein' ustogether? They ain't no heart in a feller that can whistle in a stormlike this!"
But Mac Strann had lowered his head, bulldog-like, and now he listenedand thrust out his blunt jaw farther and farther and returned no answer.
"God gimme the grit to stick it out," begged Haw-Haw Langley in anagony of desire. "God lemme see how it comes out. God lemme watch 'emfight. One of 'em is goin' to die--may be two of 'em--nothin' like ithas ever been seen!"
The rain shifted, and the heart of the storm rolled far away. For themoment they could look far out across the shadow-swept hills, and out ofthe heart of the desolate landscape the whistling ran thrilling uponthem. It was so loud an
d close that of one accord the two listenersjerked their heads about and stared at each other, and then turned theireyes as hastily away, as though terrified by what they had seen--each inthe face of the other. It was no idle tune which they heard whistled.This was a rising, soaring pean of delight. It rang down upon thewind--it cut into their faces like the drops of the rain; it brandeditself like freezing cold into their foreheads.
And then, upon the crest of the nearest hill, Haw-Haw Langley saw a dimfigure through the mist, a man on a horse and something else running infront; and they came swiftly.
"It's the wolf that's runnin' us down!" screamed Haw-Haw Langley. "Oh,God A'mighty, even if we was to want to run, the wolf would come andpull us down. Mac, will you save me? Will you keep the wolf away?"
He clung to the arm of his companion, but the other brushed him backwith a violence which almost unseated Haw-Haw.
"Keep off'n me," growled Mac Strann, "because when you touch me, itfeels like somethin' dead was next to my skin. Keep off'n me!"
Haw-Haw dragged himself back into the saddle with effort, for it wasslippery with rain. His face convulsed with something black as hate.
"It ain't long you'll do the orderin' and be so free with your hands.He's comin'--soon! Mac, I'd like to stay--I'd like to see thefinish----" he stopped, his buzzard eyes glittering against the face ofthe giant.
The rain blotted out the figure of the coming horseman, and at the sameinstant the whistling leaped close upon them. It was as if the whistlingman had disappeared at the place where the rain swallowed his form, andhad taken body again at their very side. Mac Strann shrank back againstthe wall, bracing his shoulders, and gripped the butts of his guns. ButHaw-Haw Langley cast a frightened glance on either side; his head makingbirdlike, pecking notions, and then he leaned over the pommel of hissaddle with a wail of despair and spurred off into the rain.
