the Untamed (1919)

by Brand, Max

  "I don't want to think of movin', Kate. I feel mighty comfortable. I'm forgettin' all about that ache in my head. Ain't that queer? Why, Kate, what in the world are you laughin' about?"

  "I don't know, Dan. I'm just happy."

  "Kate."

  "Yes?"

  "I like you pretty much."

  "I'm so glad!"

  "You an' Black Bart, an' Satan----"

  "Oh!" Her tone changed.

  "Why are you tryin' to take your hand away, Kate?'

  "Don't you care for me any more than for your horse--and your dog?"

  He drew a long breath, puzzled.

  "It's some different, I figger."

  "Tell me!"

  "If Black Bart died----"

  The wolf-dog whined, hearing his name.

  "Good ol' Bart! Well, if Black Bart died maybe I'd some day have another dog I'd like almost as much."

  "Yes."

  "An' if Satan died--even Satan!--maybe I could sometime like another hoss pretty well--if he was a pile like Satan! But if you was to die--it'd be different, a considerable pile different."

  "Why?"

  His pauses to consider these questions were maddening.

  "I don't know," he muttered at last.

  Once more she was thankful for the dark to hide her smile.

  "Maybe you know the reason, Kate?"

  Her laughter was rich music. His hold on her hand relaxed. He was thinking of a new theme. When he laughed in turn it startled her. She had never heard that laugh before."

  "What is it, Dan?"

  "He was pretty big, Kate. He was bigger'n almost any man I ever seen! It was kind of funny. After he hit me I was almost glad. I didn't hate him----"

  "Dear Dan!"

  "I didn't hate him--I jest nacherally wanted to kill him--and wantin' to do that made me glad. Isn't that funny, Kate?"

  He spoke of it as a chance traveller might point out a striking feature of the landscape to a companion.

  "Dan, if you really care for me you must drop the thought of him."

  His hand slipped away.

  "How can I do that? That writin' I was tellin' you about----"

  "Yes?"

  "It's about him!"

  "Ah!"

  "When he hit me the first time----"

  "I won't hear you tell of it!"

  "The blood come down my chin--jest a little trickle of it. It was warm, Kate. That was what made me hot all through."

  Her hands fell limp, cold, lifeless.

  "It's as clear as the print in a book. I've got to finish him. That's the only way I can forget the taste of my own blood."

  "Dan, listen to me!"

  He laughed again, in the new way. She remembered that her father had dreaded the very thing that had come to Dan--this first taste of his own powers--this first taste (she shuddered) of blood!

  "Dan, you've told me that you like me. You have to make a choice now, between pursuing this man, and me."

  "You don't understand," he explained carefully. "I got to follow him. I can't help it no more'n Black Bart can help howlin' when he sees the moon."

  He fell silent, listening. Far across the hills came the plaintive wail of a coyote--that shrill bodiless sound. Kate trembled.

  "Dan!"

  Outside, Satan whinnied softly like a call. She leaned and her lips touched his. He thrust her away almost roughly.

  "There's blood on my lips, Kate! I can't kiss you till they're clean."

  He turned his head.

  "You must listen to me, Dan!"

  "Kate, would you talk to the wind?"

  "Yes, if I loved the wind!"

  He turned his head.

  She pleaded: "Here are my hands to cover your eyes and shut out the thoughts of this man you hate. Here are my lips, dear, to tell you that I love you unless this thirst for killing carries you away from me. Stay with me! Give me your heart to keep gentle!"

  He said nothing, but even through the dark she was aware of a struggle in his face, and then, through the gloom, she began to see his eyes more clearly. They seemed to be illuminated by a light from within--they changed--there was a hint of yellow in the brown. And she spoke again, blindly, passionately.

  "Give me your promise! It is so easy to do. One little word will make you safe. It will save you from yourself."

  Still he answered nothing. Black Bart came and crouched at his head and stared at her fixedly.

  "Speak to me!"

  Only the yellow light answered her. Cold fear fought in her heart, but love still struggled against it.

  "For the last time--for God's sake, Dan!"

  Still that silence. She rose, shaking and weak. The changeless eyes followed her. Only fear remained now. She backed towards the door slowly, then faster, and faster. At the threshold she whirled and plunged into the night.

  Up the road she raced. Once she stumbled and fell to her knees. She cried out and glanced behind her, breathing again when she saw that nothing followed. At the house she made no pause, though she heard the voice of her father singing. She could not tell him. He should be the last in all the world to know. She went to her room and huddled into bed.

  Presently a knock came at her door, and her father's voice asked if she were ill. She pleaded that she had a bad headache and wished to be alone. He asked if she had seen Dan. By a great effort she managed to reply that Dan had ridden to a neighbouring ranch. Her father left the door without further question. Afterwards she heard him in the distance singing his favourite mournful ballads. It doubled her sense of woe and brought home the clinging fear. She felt that if she could weep she might live, but otherwise her heart would burst. And after hours and hours of that torture which burns the name of "woman" in the soul of a girl, the tears came. The roosters announced the dawn before she slept.

  Late the next morning old Joe Cumberland knocked again at her door. He was beginning to fear that this illness might be serious. Moreover, he had a definite purpose in rousing her.

  "Yes?" she called, after the second knock.

  "Look out your window, honey, down to Morgan's place. You remember I said I was goin' to clean up the landscape?"

  The mention of Morgan's place cleared the sleep from Kate's mind and it brought back the horror of the night before. Shivering she slipped from her bed and went to the window. Morgan's place was a mass of towering flames!

  She grasped the window-sill and stared again. It could not be. It must be merely another part of the nightmare, and no reality. Her father's voice, high with exultation, came dimly to her ears, but what she saw was Dan as he had laid there the night before, hurt, helpless, too weak to move!

  "There's the end of it," Joe Cumberland was saying complacently outside her door. "There ain't goin' to be even a shadow of the saloon left nor nothin' that's in it. I jest travelled down there this mornin' and touched a match to it!"

  Still she stared without moving, without making a sound. She was seeing Dan as he must have wakened from a swoonlike sleep with the smell of smoke an dthe heat of rising flames around him. She saw him struggle, and fail to reach his feet. She almost heard him cry out--a sound drowned easily by the roar of the fire, and the crackling of the wood. She saw him drag himself with his hands across the floor, only to be beaten back by a solid wall of flame. Black Bart crouched beside him and would not leave his doomed master. Fascinated by the raging fire the black stallion Satan would break from the shed and rush into the flames!--and so the inseparable three must have perished together!

  "Why don't you speak, Kate?" called her father.

  "Dan!" she screamed, and pitched forward to the floor. The Untamed By Max Brand Shop Amazon.com for inexpensive printed version CHAPTER IX

  The Phantom Rider IN THE daytime the willows along the wide, level river bottom seemed an unnatural growth, for they made a streak of yellow-green across the mountain-desert when all other verdure withered and died. After nightfall they became still more dreary. Even when the air was calm there was apt to be a s
ound as of wind, for the tenuous, trailing branches brushed lightly together, making a guarded whispering like ghosts.

  In a small clearing among these willows sat Silent and his companions. A fifth member had just arrived at this rendezvous, answered the quiet greeting with a wave of his hand, and was now busy caring for his horse. Bill Kilduff, who had a natural inclination and talent for cookery, raked up the defty dying coals of the fire over which he had cooked the supper, and set about preparing bacon and coffee for the newcomer. The latter came forward, and squatted close to the cook, watching the process with a careful eye. He made a sharp contrast with the rest of the group. From one side his profile showed the face of a good-natured boy, but when he turned his head the flicker of the firelight ran down a scar which gleamed in a jagged semi-circle from his right eyebrow to the corner of his mouth. This whole side of his countenance was drawn by the cut, the mouth stretching to a perpetual grimace. When he spoke it was as if he were attempting secrecy. The rest of the men waited in patience until he finished eating. Then Silent asked: "What news, Jordan?"

  Jordan kept his regretful eyes a moment longer on his empty coffee cup.

  "There ain't a pile to tell," he answered at last. "I suppose you heard about what happened to the chap you beat up at Morgan's place the other day."

  "Who knows that I beat him up?" asked Silent sharply.

  "Nobody," said Jordan, "but when I heard the description of the man that hit Whistling Dan with the chair, I knew it was Jim Silent."

  "What about Barry?" asked Haines, but Jordan still kept his eyes on the chief.

  "They was sayin' pretty general," he went on, "that you needed that chair, Jim. Is that right?"

  The other three glanced covertly to each other. Silent's hand hunched into a great fist.

  "He went loco. I had to slam him. Was he hurt bad?"

  "The cut on his head wasn't much, but he was left lyin' in the saloon that night, an' the next morning' old Joe Cumberland, not knowin' that Whistlin' Dan was in there, come down an' touched a match to the old joint. She went up in smoke an' took Dan along."

  No one spoke for a moment. Then Silent cried out: "Then what was that whistlin' I've heard down the road behind us?"

  Bill Kilduff broke into rolling bass laughter, and Hal Purvis chimed in with a squeaking tenor.

  "We told you all along, Jim," said Purvis, as soon as he could control his voice, "that there wasn't any whistlin' behind us. We know you got powerful good hearin', Jim, but we all figger you been makin' somethin' out of nothin'. Am I right, boys?"

  "You sure are," said Kilduff, "I ain't heard a thing.

  Silent rolled his eyes angrily from face to face.

  "I'm kind of sorry the lad got his in the fire. I was hopin' maybe we'd meet agin. There's nothin' I'd rather do that be alone five minutes with Whistlin' Dan."

  His eyes dared any one to smile. The men merely exchanged glances. When he turned away they grinned broadly. Hal Purvis turned and caught Bill Kilduff by the shoulder.

  "Bill," he said excitedly, "if Whistlin' Dan is dead there ain't any master for that dog!"

  "What about him?" growled Kilduff.

  "I'd like to try my hand with him," said Purvis, and he moistened his tight lips. "Did you see the black devil when he snarled at me in front of Morgan's place?"

  "He sure didn't look too pleasant."

  "Right. Maybe if I had him on a chain I could change his manners some, eh?"

  "How?"

  "A whip every day, damn him--a whip every time he showed his teeth at me. No eats till he whined and licked my hand."

  "He'd die first. I know that kind of a dog--or a wolf."

  "Maybe he'd die. Anyway I'd like to try my hand with him. Bill, I'm goin' to get hold of him some of these days if I have to ride a hundred miles an' swim a river!"

  Kilduff grunted.

  "Let the damn wolf be. You c'n have him, I say. What I'm thinkin' about is the hoss. Hal, do you remember the way he settled to his stride when he lighted out after Red Pete?"

  Purvis shrugged his shoulders.

  "You're a fool, Bill. Which no man but Barry could ever ride that hoss. I seen it in his eye. He'd cash in buckin'. He'd fight you like a man."

  Kilduff sighed. A great yearning was in his eyes.

  "Hal," he said softly, "they's some men go around for years an' huntin' for a girl whose picture is in their bean, cached away somewhere. When they see her they jest nacherally goes nutty. Hal, I don't give a damn for women folk, but I've travelled around a long time with a picture of a hoss in my brain, an' Satan is the hoss."

  He closed his eyes.

  "I c'n see him now. I c'n see them shoulders--an' that head--an', my God! them eyes--them fire eatin' eyes! Hal, if a man was to win the heart of that hoss he'd lay down his life for you--he'd run himself plumb to death! I won't never sleep tight till I get the feel of them satin sides of his between my knees."

  Lee Haines heard them speak, but he said nothing. His heart also leaped when he heard of Whistling Dan's death, but he thought neither of the horse nor the dog. He was seeing the yellow hair and the blue eyes of Kate Cumberland. He approached Jordan and took a place beside him.

  "Tell me some more about it, Terry," he asked.

  "Some more about what?"

  "About Whistling Dan's death--about the burning of the saloon," said Haines.

  "What the hell! Are you still thinkin' about that?"

  "I certainly am."

  "Then I'll trade you news," said Terry Jordan, lowering his voice so that it would not reach the suspicious ear of Jim Silent. "I'll tell you about the burning' if you'll tell me something about Barry's fight with Silent!"

  "It's a trade," answered Haines.

  "All right. Seems old Joe Cumberland had a hunch to clean up the landscape--old fool! so he jest up in the mornin' an' without sayin' a word to any one he downs to the saloon and touches a match to it. When he come back to his house he tells his girl, Kate, what he done. With that she lets out a holler an' drops in a faint."

  Haines muttered.

  "What's the matter?" asked Terry, a little anxiously.

  "Nothin'," said Haines. "She fainted, eh? Well, go on!"

  "Yep. She fainted an' when she come to, she told Cumberland that Dan was in the saloon, an' probably too weak to get out of the fire. They started for the place on the run. When they got there all they found was a pile of red hot coals. So everyone figures that he went up in the flames. That's all I know. Now what about the fight?"

  Lee Haines sat with fixed eyes.

  "There isn't much to say about the fight," he said at last.

  "The hell there isn't," scoffed Terry Jordan. "From what I heard, this Whistling Dan simply cut loose and raised the devil more general than a dozen mavericks corralled with a bunch of yearlings."

  "Cutting loose is right," said Haines. "It wasn't a pleasant thing to watch. One moment he was about as dangerous as an eighteen-year-old girl. The next second he was like a panther that's tasted blood. That's all there was to it, Terry. After the first blow, he was all over the chief. You know Silent's a bad man with his hands?"

  "I guess we all know that," said Jordan, with a significant smile.

  "Well," said Haines, "he was like a baby in the hands of Barry. I don't like to talk about it--none of us do. It makes the flesh creep."

  There was a loud crackling among the underbrush several hundred yards away. It drew closer and louder.

  "Start up your works agin, will you, Bill?" called Silent. "Here comes Shorty Rhinehart, an' he's overdue."

  In a moment Shorty swung from his horse and joined the group. He gained his nickname from his excessive length, being taller by an inch or two than Jim Silent himself, but what he gained in height he lost in width. Even his face was monstrously long, and marked with such sad lines that the favourite name of "Shorty" was affectionately varied to "Sour-face" or "Calamity." Silent went to him at once.

  "You seen Hardy?" he asked.

  "I
sure did," said Rhinehart, "an' it's the last time I'll make that trip to him, you can lay to that."

  "Did he give you the dope?"

  "No."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I jest want you to know that this here's my last trip to Elkhead--on any business."

  "Why?"

  "I passed three marshals on the street, an' I knew them all. They was my friends, formerly. One of them was----"

  "What did they do?"

  "I waved my hand to them, glad an' familiar. They jest grunted. One of them, he looked up an' down the street, an' seein' that no one was in sight, he come up to me an' without shakin' hands he says: 'I'm some surprised to see you in Elkhead, Short.' 'Why,' says I, 'the town's all right, ain't it?' 'It's all right,' he says, 'but you'd find it a pile more healthier out on the range.'"

  "What the hell did he mean by that?" growled Silent.

  "He simply meant that they're beginnin' to think a lot more about us than they used to. We've been pullin' too many jobs the last six months."

  "You've said that before, Shorty. I'm runnin' this gang. Tell me about Hardy."

  "I'm comin' to that. I went into the Wells Fargo office down by the railroad, an' the clerk sent me back to find Hardy in the back room, where he generally is. When he seen me he changed colour. I'd jest popped my head through the door an' sung out: 'Hello, Hardy, how's the boy?' He jumped up from the desk an' sung out so's his clerk in the outside room could hear: 'How are you, lad?' an' he pulled me quick into the room an' locked the door behind me.

  "'Now what in hell have you come to Elkhead for?' says he.

  "'For a drink,' says I, never battin' an eye.

  "'You've come a damn long ways,' says he.

  "'Sure,' says I, 'that's one reason I'm so dry. Will you liquor, pal?'

  "He looked like he needed a drink, all right. He begun loosening his short collar.

  "'Thanks, but I ain't drinkin',' says he. 'Look here, Shorty, are you loco to come ridin' into Elkhead this way?'

  "'I'm jest beginnin' to think maybe I am,' says I.

  "'Shorty,' he says in a whisper, 'they're beginnin' to get wise to the whole gang--includin' me.'

  "'Take a brace,' says I. 'They ain't got a thing on you, Hardy.'

  "'That don't keep 'em from thinkin' a hell of a pile,' says he, 'an' I tell you, Shorty, I'm jest about through with the whole works. It ain't worth it--not if there was a million in it. Everybody is gettin' wise to Silent, an' the rest of you. Pretty soon hell's goin' to bust loose.'