the Untamed (1919)

by Brand, Max

  A faint light broke the gloom of Silent's face.

  "Yaller hair an' blue eyes. They c'n do a lot. Maybe you're right. What's that?" His voice had gone suddenly husky.

  A russet moon pushed slowly up through the trees. Its uncertain light fell across the clearing. For the first time the thick pale smoke of the fire was visible, rising straight up until it cleared the tops of the willows, and then caught into swift, jagging lines as the soft wind struck it. A coyote wailed from the distant hills, and before his complaint was done another sound came through the hushing of the willows, a melancholy whistling, thin with distance.

  "We'll see if that's the man you want," suggested Haines.

  "I'll go along," said Shorty Rhinehart.

  "And me too," said a third. The whole group would have accompanied them, but the heavy voice of Jim Silent cut in: "You'll stay here, all of you except the girl and Lee."

  They turned back, muttering, and Kate followed Haines into the willows.

  "Well?" growled Bill Kilduff.

  "What I want to know--" broke in Terry Jordan.

  "Go to hell with your questions," said Silent, "but until you go there you'll do what I say, understand?"

  "Look here, Jim," said Hal Purvis, "are you a king an' we jest your slaves, maybe?"

  "You're goin' it a pile too hard," said Shorty Rhinehart.

  Every one of these speeches came sharply out while they glared at Jim Silent. Hands were beginning to fall to the hip and fingers were curving stiffly as if for the draw. Silent leaned his broad shoulders against the side of his roan and folded his arms. His eyes went round the circle, slowly, lingered an instant on each face. Under that cold stare they grew uneasy. To Shorty Rhinehart it became necessary to push back his hat and scratch his forehead. Terry Jordan found a mysterious business with his bandana. Every one of them had occasion to raise his hand from the neighbourhood of his six-shooter. Silent smiled.

  "A fine, hard crew you are," he said sarcastically, at last. "A great bunch of long riders, lettin' a slip of a yaller-haired girl make fools of you. You over there--you, Shorty Rhinehart, you'd cut the throat of a man that looked crosswise at the Cumberland girl, wouldn't you? An' you, Purvis, you're achin' to get at me, ain't you? An' you're still thinkin' of them blue eyes, Jordan?"

  Before any one could speak he poured in another volley between wind and water: "One slip of a girl can make fools out of five long riders? No, you ain't long riders. All you c'n handle is hobby hosses!"

  "What do you want us to do?" growled swarthy Bill Kilduff.

  "Keep your face shut while I'm talkin', that's what I want you to do!"

  There was a devil of rage in his eyes. His folded arms tugged at each other, and if they got free there would be gun play. The four men shrank, and he was satisfied.

  "Now I'll tell you what we're goin' to do," he went on. "We're goin' out after Haines an' the girl. If they come up with this Whistlin' Dan we're goin' to surround him an' fill him full of lead, while they're talkin'."

  "Not for a million dollars!" burst in Hal Purvis.

  "Not in a thousan' years!" echoed Terry Jordan.

  Silent turned his watchful eyes from one to the other. They were ready to fight now, and he sensed it at once.

  "Why?" he asked calmly.

  "It ain't playin' square with the girl," announced Rhinehart.

  "Purvis," said Silent, for he knew that the opposition centred in the figure of the venomous little gun fighter; "if you seen a mad dog that was runnin' straight at you, would you be kep' from shootin' it because a pretty girl hollered out an' asked you not to?"

  Their eyes shifted rapidly from one to another, seeking a way out, and finding none.

  "An' is there any difference between this here Whistlin' Dan an' a mad dog?"

  Still they were mute.

  "I tell you, boys, we got a better chance of dodgin' lightnin' an' puttin' a bloodhound off our trail than we have of gettin' rid of this Whistlin' Dan. An' when he catches up with us--well, all I'm askin' is that you remember what he done to them four dollars before they hit the dust?"

  "The chief's right," growled Kilduff, staring down at the ground. "It's Whistlin' Dan or us. The mountains ain't big enough to hold him an' us!"

  .......

  Before Whistling Dan the great wolf glided among the trees. For a full hour they had wandered through the willows in this manner, and Dan had made up his mind to surrender the search when Bart, returning from one of his noiseless detours, sprang out before his master and whined softly. Dan turned, loosening his revolver in the holster, and followed Bart through the soft gloom of the tree shadows and the moonlight. His step was almost as silent as that of the slinking animal which went before. At last the wolf stopped and raised his head. Almost instantly Dan saw a man and a woman approaching through the willows. The moonlight dropped across her face. He recognized Kate, with Lee Haines walking a pace before her.

  "Stand where you are," he said.

  Haines leaped to one side, his revolver flashing in his hand. Dan stepped out before them while Black Bart slunk close beside him, snarling softly.

  He seemed totally regardless of the gun in Haines's hand. His manner was that of a conqueror who had the outlaw at his mercy.

  "You," he said, "walk over there to the side of the clearing."

  "Dan!" cried Kate, as she went to him with extended arms.

  He stopped her with a gesture, his eyes upon Haines, who had moved away.

  "Watch him, Bart," said Dan.

  The black wolf ran to Haines and crouched snarling at his feet. The outlaw restored his revolver to his holster and stood with his arms folded, his back turned. Dan looked to Kate. At the meeting of their eyes she shrank a little. She had expected a difficult task in persuading him, but not this hard aloofness. She felt suddenly as if she were a stranger to him.

  "How do you come here--with him?"

  "He is my friend."

  "You sure pick a queer place to go walkin' with him."

  "Hush, Dan! He brought me here to find you!"

  "He brought you here?"

  "Don't you understand?"

  "When I want a friend like him, I'll go huntin' for him myself; an' I'll pack a gun with me!"

  That flickering yellow light played behind Dan's eyes.

  "I looked into his face--an' he stared the other way."

  She made a little imploring gesture, but his hand remained on his hips, and there was no softening of his voice.

  "What fetched you here?"

  Every word was like a hand that pushed her farther away.

  "Are you dumb, Kate? What fetched you here?"

  "I have come to bring you home, Dan."

  "I'm home now."

  "What do you mean?"

  "There's the roof of my house," he jerked his hand towards the sky, "the mountain passes are my doors--an' the earth is my floor."

  "No! no! We are waiting for you at the ranch."

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  "Dan, this wild trail has no end."

  "Maybe, but I know that feller can show me the way to Jim Silent, an' now----"

  He turned towards Haines as he spoke, but here a low venomous snarl from Black Bart checked his words. Kate saw him stiffen--his lips parted to a faint smile--his head tilted back a little as if he listened intently, though she could hear nothing. She was not a yard from him, and yet she felt a thousand miles away. His head turned full upon her, and she would never forget the yellow light of his eyes.

  "Dan!" she cried, but her voice was no louder than a whisper.

  "Delilah!" he said, and leaped back into the shade of the willows.

  Even as he sprang she saw the flash of the moonlight on his drawn revolver, and fire spat from it twice, answered by a yell of pain, the clang of a bullet on metal, and a half a dozen shots from the woods behind her.

  That word "Delilah!" rang in her brain to the exclusion of all the world. Vaguely she heard voices shouting--she turned a little and sa
w Haines facing her with his revolver in his hand, but prevented from moving by the wolf who crouched snarling at his feet. The order of his master kept him there even after that master was gone. Now men ran out into the clearing. A keen whistle sounded far off among the willows, and the wolf leaped away from his prisoner and into the shadows on the trail of Dan.

  .......

  Tex Calder prided himself on being a light sleeper. Years spent in constant danger enabled him to keep his sense of hearing alert even when he slept. He had never been surprised. It was his boast that he never would be. Therefore when a hand dropped lightly on his shoulder he started erect from his blankets with a curse and grasped his revolver. A strong grip on his wrist paralysed his fingers. Whistling Dan leaned above him.

  "Wake up," said the latter.

  "What the devil--" breathed the marshal. "You travel like a cloud shadow, Dan. You make no sound."

  "Wake up and talk to me."

  "I'm awake all right. What's happened!"

  There was a moment of silence while Dan seemed to be trying for speech.

  Black Bart, at the other side of the clearing, pointed his nose at the yellow moon and wailed. He was very close, but the sound was so controlled that it seemed to come at a great distance from some wild spirit wandering between earth and heaven.

  Instead of speaking Dan jumped to his feet and commenced pacing up and down, up and down, a rapid, tireless stride; at his heels the wolf slunk, with lowered head and tail. The strange fellow was in some great trouble, Calder could see, and it stirred him mightily to know that the wild man had turned to him for help. Yet he would ask no questions.

  When in doubt the cattleman rolls a cigarette, and that was what Calder did. He smoked and waited. At last the inevitable came.

  "How old are you, Tex?"

  "Forty-four."

  "That's a good deal. You ought to know something."

  "Maybe."

  "About women?"

  "Ah!" said Calder.

  "Bronchos is cut out chiefly after one pattern," went on Dan. "They's chiefly jest meanness. Are women the same--jest cut after one pattern?"

  "What pattern, Dan?"

  "The pattern of Delilah! They ain't no trust to be put in 'em?"

  "A good many of us have found that out."

  "I thought one woman was different from the rest."

  "We all think that. Woman in particular is divine; woman in general is--hell!"

  "Ay, but this one--" He stopped and set his teeth.

  "What has she done?"

  "She--" he hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice did not tremble; there was a deep hurt and wonder in it: "She double-crossed me!"

  "When? Do you mean to say you've met a woman tonight out here among the willows?--Where--how----"

  "Tex----!"

  "Ay, Dan."

  "It's--it's hell!"

  "It is now. But you'll forget her! The mountains, the desert, and above all, time--they'll cure you, my boy."

  "Not in a whole century, Tex."

  Calder waited curiously for the explanation. It came.

  "Jest to think of her is like hearing music. Oh, God, Tex, what c'n I do to fight agin this here cold feelin' at my heart?"

  Dan slipped down beside the marshal and the latter dropped a sympathetic hand over the lean, brown fingers. They returned the pressure with a bone-crushing grip.

  "Fight, Dan! It will make you forget her."

  "Her skin is softer'n satin, Tex."

  "Ay, but you'll never touch it again, Dan."

  "Her eyes are deeper'n a pool at night an' her hair is all gold like ripe corn."

  "You'll never look into her eyes again, Dan, and you'll never touch the gold of that hair."

  "God!"

  The word was hardly more than a whisper, but it brought Black Bart leaping to his feet.

  Dan spoke again: "Tex, I'm thankin' you for listenin' to me; I wanted to talk. Bein' silent was burning' me up. There's one thing more."

  "Fire it out, lad."

  "This evenin' I told you I hated no man but Jim Silent."

  "Yes."

  "An' now they's another of his gang. Sometime--when she's standin' by--I'm goin' to take him by the throat till he don't breathe no more. Then I'll throw him down in front of her an' ask her if she c'n kiss the life back into his lips!"

  Calder was actually shaking with excitement, but he was wise enough not to speak.

  "Tex!"

  "Ay, lad."

  "But when I've choked his damned life away----"

  "Yes?"

  "There'll be five more that seen her shamin' me. Tex--all hell is bustin' loose inside me!"

  For a moment Calder watched, but that stare of cold hate mastered him. He turned his head.

  Chapter XV

  The Cross Roads AS BLACK BART raced away in answer to Dan's whistle, Kate recovered herself from the daze in which she stood and with a sob ran towards the willows, calling the name of Dan, but Silent sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. She cried out and struggled vainly in his grip.

  "Don't follow him, boys!" called Silent. "He's a dog that can bite while he runs. Stand quiet, girl!"

  Lee Haines caught him by the shoulder and jerked Silent around. His hand held the butt of his revolver, and his whole arm trembled with eagerness for the draw.

  "Take your hand from her, Jim!" he said.

  Silent met his eye with the same glare and while his left hand still held Kate by both her wrists his right dropped to his gun.

  "Not when you tell me, Lee!"

  "Damn you, I say let her go!"

  "By God, Haines, I stand for too much from you!"

  And still they did not draw, because each of them knew that if the crisis came it would mean death to them both. Bill Kilduff jumped between them and thrust them back.

  He cried, "Ain't we got enough trouble without roundin' up work at home? Terry Jordan is shot through the arm."

  Kate tugged at the restraining hand of Silent, not in an attempt to escape, but in order to get closer to Haines.

  "Was this your friendship?" she said, her voice shaking with hate and sorrow, "to bring me here as a lure for Whistling Dan? Listen to me, all of you! He's escaped you now, and he'll come again. Remember him, for he shan't forget you!"

  "You hear her?" said Silent to Haines. "Is this what you want me to turn loose?"

  "Silent," said Haines, "it isn't the girl alone you've double crossed. You've crooked me, and you'll pay me for it sooner or later!"

  "Day or night, winter or summer, I'm willing to meet you an' fight it out. Rhinehart and Purvis, take this girl back to the clearing!"

  They approached, Purvis still staring at the hand from which only a moment before his gun had been knocked by the shot of Whistling Dan. It was a thing which he could not understand--he had not yet lost a most uncomfortable sense of awe. Haines made no objection when they went off, with Kate walking between them. He knew, now that his blind anger had left him, that it was folly to draw on a fight while the rest of Silent's men stood around them.

  "An' the rest of you go back to the clearin'. I got somethin' to talk over with Lee," said Silent.

  The others obeyed without question, and the leader turned back to his lieutenant. For a moment longer they remained staring at each other. Then Silent moved slowly forward with outstretched hand.

  "Lee," he said quietly, "I'm owin' you an' apology an' I'm man enough to make it."

  "I can't take your hand, Jim."

  Silent hesitated.

  "I guess you got cause to be mad, Lee," he said. "Maybe I played too quick a hand. I didn't think about double crossin' you. I only seen a way to get Whistlin' Dan out of our path, an' I took it without rememberin' that you was the safeguard to the girl."

  Haines eyed his chief narrowly.

  "I wish to God I could read your mind," he said at last, "but I'll take your word that you did it without thinking."

  His hand slowly met Silent's.

  "An'
what about the girl now, Lee?"

  "I'll send her back to her father's ranch. It will be easy to put her on the right way."

  "Don't you see no reason why you can't do that?"

  "Are you playing with me?"

  "I'm talking to you as I'd talk to myself. If she's loose she'll describe us all an' set the whole range on our trail."

  Haines stared.

  Silent went on: "If we can't turn her loose, they's only one thing left--an' that's to take her with us wherever we go."

  "On your honour, do you see no other way out?"

  "Do you?"

  "She may promise not to speak of it."

  "There ain't no way of changin' the spots of a leopard, Lee, an' there ain't no way of keepin' a woman's tongue still."

  "How can we take a girl with us?"

  "It ain't goin' to be for long. After we pull the job that comes on the eighteenth, we'll blow farther south an' then we'll let her go."

  "And no harm will come to her while she's with us?"

  "Here's my hand on it, Lee."

  "How can she ride with us?"

  "She won't go as a woman. I've thought of that. I brought out a new outfit for Purvis from Elkhead--trousers, chaps, shirts, an' all. He's small. They'll near fit the girl."

  "There isn't any other way, Jim?"

  "I'll leave it to you. God knows I don't want to drag any damn calico aroun' with us."

  As they went back towards their clearing they arranged the details. Silent would take the men aside and explain his purpose to them. Haines could inform the girl of what she must do. Just before they reached the camp Silent stopped short and took Haines by the shoulder.

  "They's one thing I can't make out, Lee, an' that's how Whistlin' Dan made his getaway. I'd of bet a thousand bones that he would be dropped before he could touch his shootin' irons. An' then what happened? Hal Purvis jest flashed a gun--and that feller shot it out'n his hand. I never seen a draw like that. His hand jest seemed to twitch--I couldn't follow the move he made--an' the next second his gun went off."

  He stared at Lee with a sort of fascinated horror.

  "Silent," said Haines, "can you explain how the lightning comes down out of the sky?"

  "Of course not."

  "Then don't ask me to explain how Whistling Dan made his getaway. One minute I heard him talkin' with the girl. The next second there was two shots and when I whirled he was gone. But he'll come back, Jim. We're not through with him. He slipped away from and your men like water out of a sieve, but we won't slip away from him the same way."