by Max Brand
They came out from among the trees with a rush and a sweep, the leader and obvious commander well in advance. He went straight up to the door of the house, but Wully, seeing the two who were approaching on foot, shouted out, and the other turned the head of his horse toward Ranger and the old man.
“It’s Lyons,” said old Crosson. “It’s Chester Lyons of the Timberline. God forgive our sins. It’s Chester Lyons.”
The mind of Ranger leaped backward. He had heard the name before, many times. He tried to remember where—in a newspaper, somewhere, connected with a story of killing, or robbery, or of some such thing. And then there was a campfire in the Montana brush, and a sourdough was telling him a long and grim story of battle, hard riding, and revenge. That had been about Chester Lyons of the Timberline, who lived on the heights and dropped down on other men like an eagle out of the heavens. Yes, that was Chester Lyons.
Once, at the end of a hard day’s mushing through the Alaska snows, a bunkie had told him another tale more dreadful than the others. That had been about Chester Lyons, also. He could remember few details. He chiefly knew that the name of Chester Lyons rang in his ear, awaking grim echoes and sensations of dread.
When he looked again at this lean, hard-faced rider, the echoes turned into reality. The man looked resistless—resistless in wisdom and in cunning and in steel-tempered hardness of resolve.
They were close to the troop of riders. Wully, his one visible eye contracted to a spark of light, swung his horse behind them to cut off any retreat and unshipped a revolver as he did so.
“We’ll go on slowly, Wully,” said the leader.
His voice was low and hushed by hoarseness, like one who has been out in a duststorm, or who has been suffering from a bronchial trouble. It seemed painful to him to speak. He never coughed. One wished that he would. His throat seemed strangling as he talked.
We’ll go on slowly, Wully. That was what he had said, but to Ranger the implication was that they would relentlessly cling to their course until the end.
“Here’s a desert rat that is crooked . . . that’s against us,” said Wully. “I’ve seen him. I know him. And this here is the old ferret. If you got rid of the two of ’em, it wouldn’t do us any harm.”
What did the man mean? The mind of Ranger whirled. Murder was what he meant. The fellow was mad—mad with shame and with hate for what he had endured.
“We’ll see about that,” answered Chester Lyons. “You’re Peter Crosson, I take it?”
“I’m Peter Crosson,” answered the old man.
“You have a boy living with you here?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been deviling some of my men,” said Lyons. “I’ve sent you a warning before. I’ve told you what I’ll do. And now I’m down here to do it. I’ve warned you not to devil my men, haven’t I?”
“I’ve deviled nobody,” said Peter Crosson.
Never increasing the soft volume of his tone, the husky-voiced leader spoke. “You lie. You’ve refused to put up my men when they’re traveling through this cut. You’ve been offered good money for everything you furnished to them. And you’ve refused the money. You preferred to shut ’em out and let ’em starve, if they had to.”
“No . . .” began Crosson.
The leader raised one hand.
“Harley Morris came through here after I’d talked to you, or, rather, sent you word of what I wanted. Harley was sick. He could hardly sit on his horse. He was sick all through, and he reeled in the saddle. He stopped here and asked you to take him in.”
Crosson said nothing.
“Is that true, Crosson?”
“I was afraid to take him in.”
“He had to ride on, and he died of it.”
“He was already dying when he came here,” said the old man. “He was dying of the bullets that were in him.”
“Take it one way or the other. You turned away a dying man.”
“I was afraid to take him in,” repeated Crosson.
“How could he have hurt you? He was weak as a cat.”
“His friends that were sure to come down for him, they wouldn’t be weak as a cat.”
“Crosson,” said the leader, “one of my men has died, and I think you’ve had a hand in killing him. Others of my men you’ve badgered away with your wolf dogs. There’s one of them right now.” He pointed to Wully.
“Aye,” said Wully, “and he’ll sweat blood for it.”
“He was no friend of yours when he came here,” said Crosson. “He never had had anything to do with you when he came here.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Your men don’t come like thieves. They come up to the door and rap. They’ll pay for what they get. This fellow, he came like a thief in the dusk. We hounded him away. It’s as good as he deserves.”
“I’ll be a judge of that,” replied Lyons.
And Ranger wondered at the nerve of old Crosson in speaking back to the outlaw so briskly.
“Crosson,” said the other, “I’m a patient man, though I’m not famous for patience. But my patience has run out today. Harley Morris died, and his hand was in mine when he begged me to come down here and put things right between him and you. I’m here for that purpose. So keep your wits about you. I’m going to ask some more questions.”
“Go on,” said the old man.
The rider waved to the girl. “You know better than I do,” said Chester Lyons. “You ask him the questions that I want to know.”
The girl brought her horse closer. It was a little gelding made of watch springs and leaping flame. It came with a bound that failed to disturb her in the least, so perfectly was she balanced in the saddle. Calmly and sternly she looked upon Crosson.
“You’re a stool pigeon and a spy,” she announced. “That’s the only thing that keeps you out here on the edge of the falling-off place.”
Crosson looked grimly back at her. “You can think what you want,” he said.
“I think what I want, and I know what I think,” she told him. “The fact is, you’ve no business here on the farm. You’re making no money here. Why do you stay, then?”
“I’m making a living,” asserted Crosson. He began to frown at her.
“You don’t make a living. You live like a wolf in a cave,” said the girl. “No other two men would live on what keeps you and your boy.”
“I drive in a herd every few years,” said Crosson with an apparently rising impatience.
“You drive in a few, a handful,” said the girl. “You drive in enough to pay taxes, and that’s about all. You buy salt and sugar, and that’s about all that you do buy. Well, Peter Crosson, we want to know what keeps you out here?”
“It’s the quiet life,” he answered.
“Bah!” said the girl. “You’re here because you don’t want your face seen too far away. Isn’t that right? How glad would the right sheriff be to put his hands on you?”
Old Crosson merely smiled.
At this the girl leaned a little from her saddle, as it seemed to Ranger, as though she wanted a closer view of the face of the old fellow. “Well,” she said, “I’ll tell you what we want. We want the crazy man you call your son, and we want him quick. Where is he?”
Chapter Eighteen
The others of the party—even Wully after his first savage outbreak—had remained quietly attentive to the central conversation, never removing their fierce, bright eyes from the faces of the speakers. But now a stir went through them.
“Now you’re talking for us, Nan,” said one of them. “Don’t let the old ferret wriggle out of that. We want the boy. We want him pronto!”
“He’s gone,” said Crosson.
The trapper looked at the ground, thinking: Do they intend to lynch the lad?
“He’s gone, eh?” said the girl.
“Aye, he’s gone.”
“Where did he go?”
“Over the hills.” Crosson waved his hand toward the north.
�
�What for?”
“He’s looking up the sign of a puma that came down here and tried to kill a calf or two for itself the other day.”
“How long ago?”
“Three days.”
“There’s been a rain to wash out the sign since then,” said the girl.
“Rain don’t wash out the sign that he reads,” said Crosson.
“Bunk,” said the girl.
Crosson looked at her with an odd, small smile. “If you’ve ever watched him trailing,” he said, “you wouldn’t doubt.”
“I’ve heard a lot of stuff about what he can do,” said the girl. “You think that we’ll believe such rot?”
“I don’t care what you believe,” said the old man angrily. “I don’t care a bit. Ask this man.” He turned and pointed toward Wully. Wully was furious.
“He never could’ve done it without mind-reading . . . he’s a wizard. That young crook is a wizard, and oughta be skinned alive. And I’m gonna do it,” said Wully.
“You’ll do what you’re told,” said the haughty girl they called Nan. “You’re not your own boss now, Wully. You belong to us, to all of us.”
“Then let me see you do something for me!” exclaimed Wully. “I’ve joined you. Now let me see if you live up to your promises. Or is it all yarning and talk?”
“You’ll see what part of it is yarning and talk,” said the girl. She turned back upon Crosson. “You say that the boy’s gone?”
“Yes.”
“Which way?”
“Over yonder.”
“Search the house, a couple of you,” said the girl briskly.
Her father sat by, apparently glad to escape from the necessity of talking and giving commands, or of listening to explanations. Two of the men leaped down from their horses and hurried into the cabin, while Ranger held his breath. What would happen when they encountered the lad inside the house? What battle would break out between them?
The door was jerked open. They stepped into the dimness of the interior, but there was no sound of an encounter. Ranger began to breathe more easily again.
“Now, then,” said the girl in her sharp, quick manner, turning upon Ranger. “Who are you?”
“Lefty Bill. Ranger is my last name. Who are you?”
“I’m Nan Lyons. What’s brought you here?”
“Alaska.”
She looked fixedly at him. “What you mean by that?”
“I come to California to get thawed out.”
She looked him up and down. “You trap for a living?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to make a living around here?”
“No,” said Ranger.
“Not enough animals?”
“Too many crooks,” said Ranger.
The girl smiled a little. The faces of the listening men darkened. “But you’re staying on?” asked Nan Lyons.
“I’m staying on.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m interested, and because things may settle down later.”
She tapped her ungloved fingers on the pommel of the saddle and looked fixedly at Ranger. “Cousin Chet!” she called.
Ranger drew a quick little breath. He was strangely relieved to learn that the relationship between the two was so distant.
“Cousin Chet, he beats me. Is he telling it straight?” she asked.
Cousin Chester Lyons had been looking on and listening with the faintest of smiles.
“He’s lying like a clock,” said Lyons.
“I don’t think so,” said the girl.
“You can’t tell this kind. It’s mostly honest, with a little lie in it for salt and seasoning.”
“You question him, then,” said the girl.
“No. Go ahead for yourself. It’ll do you good. Get the truth out of him.”
The girl turned on the trapper. “You didn’t come for trapping. You didn’t come to prospect.”
“How do you know?” asked Ranger.
“We’ve followed your back trail, and you never chipped a rock. No old sourdough can keep from clicking out a bit of stone here and there.”
“I came to trap,” said Ranger.
She pointed to Crosson. “You came on account of these people,” said the girl.
Ranger would have sworn that his nerves were well-set and steady. But this sudden touch made him start. It was only a momentary contraction of the muscles, and he hoped that it would not be noticed. But he was wrong. He could see the girl’s faint smile of triumph, and her cousin said quietly: “Well done, Nan. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
Peter Crosson looked abruptly toward the trapper. He seemed bewildered and a little angered. Under his breath Ranger heard him muttering: “The first rifle in the woods . . . there had to be trouble out of that.”
“You came on account of the Crossons,” repeated the girl.
“I didn’t say that I did.”
“Your face said it for you. Now, what’s your game?”
“I’ve told you my game. Why should I answer to you?”
“There’s a good reason. My cousin is the top rider on this place.”
“What place? The ranch?”
“From here to Jeremy Peak. And both sides.” She waved her bare hand. Then she added: “Will you talk?”
“I’ve finished my talking,” said Ranger, and he freshened his grip upon his rifle.
“Hold on,” said Chester Lyons grimly. “I’ll make him talk fast enough.”
“Be easy with him, Chet,” urged the girl, suddenly anxious.
“Never mind that. You take a ride through the trees yonder, and, when you come back, I’ll know the whole inside lining of his mind.”
“I won’t go,” said the girl. She changed color. “I didn’t bargain for that sort of thing.”
Suddenly Chester Lyons pointed toward the woods. “Get out of here, Nan!” he ordered abruptly.
She hesitated, but it was the hesitation, Ranger saw, that goes before surrender.
Here Wully broke in, in spite of the tenseness of the moment: “What’s happened to the boys? What’ve they found in there? I don’t hear a word out of ’em.”
He jumped off his horse as the leader said: “Take a look inside. Nan, you can start moving.”
But Wully, reaching the door and throwing it wide open, exclaimed: “Why, there ain’t a soul in here!”
For the instant Ranger was almost forgotten. Lyons merely snapped to his last man: “Keep a bead on that fellow, and on the old dodger, too. There’s something queer in the air around here, and we’ll find out what it is.” So saying, in his turn he jumped to the ground and entered the shack at the heels of Wully.
The two were not gone long. They returned with grave faces, carrying a slip of paper.
“What’s become of them?” asked Nan.
“They’ve faded out, and left this behind ’em,” said her cousin. He read it aloud: “‘I’ll hold the pair of them till you clear out. If you don’t clear out, I’ll put you all in a place where you will keep.’”
“What?” cried the girl.
“He’ll put us all in a place where we’ll keep,” said Lyons, his face suddenly crimson and then pale with anger. “Wully and Tom, scatter for sign, and look sharp. They can’t be far. Pick up the trail, and then sound on it. Quick, now, and look sharp. You have your guns. Use ’em first and ask questions afterward, if it comes to a pinch.”
Wully and the other hastily departed around the corner of the house. The leader remained with an eye upon Ranger and Crosson, but his forehead was darkened.
“But what could have happened?” asked Nan. “What could have happened in there?”
“I don’t know,” said her cousin briefly.
“A trap door or something like that?”
“Don’t be romantic, Nan. The floor of that den is mere beaten ground.”
“I didn’t hear a sound,” she said.
“Confound it,” replied the other. “Neither did I. Don’t speak. I have
to think. And keep your eye on the woods around us, Nan. The devil is in the shadows of these trees, I have an idea. Crosson, what could have happened to these men of mine?”
The smile of Crosson seemed to Ranger both sad and sardonic.
“You’ll find out better than I could tell,” he said.
Chapter Nineteen
This singular and indifferent reply from old Crosson made the outlaw look sharply at him, and yet he did not break out into anger at once. He simply said: “You think that you have me in the hollow of your hand, Crosson?”
“I think nothing,” said the other. “But if I was you, I certainly would get out of here. Out of the woods, I mean . . . out of the whole countryside, maybe.”
“For fear of your boy?” asked the outlaw, rather in curiosity than in scorn.
“Aye, aye,” said Crosson steadily. “For fear of that boy. Man, man, I’d lose no time in going.”
“You expect me to do that, Crosson?”
“No,” said the other. “I don’t expect you to. I expect you to stay on here until your blood and brains are spattered on the trees around the shack. That’s what I expect. That’s what will likely happen. Look at your girl if you doubt it. She has an idea by this time.”
Lyons turned his head with a jerk toward Nan. She was pale and biting her lip. “Now, Nan, what is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said hurriedly. She rode her horse close to him and strove to speak for his ear alone, but her emotion made her words louder than she realized.
Ranger distinctly heard her say: “Do you put any trust in a woman’s instinct, Chet?”
“I put trust in your brains, Nan,” he said at once.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I mean it.”
“And make myself a laughingstock?”
