by Max Brand
The trapper looked oddly at him. “Menneval,” he said, “maybe it ain’t my business . . .”
“It is your business,” said Menneval. “It’s your business because you’ve come here and taken the trouble on your shoulders.”
“Then I’ve gotta say, it seems to me you’re holding something back.”
“I am,” admitted the other. “I’m holding a lot back, and what I’m holding back nobody in the world, but two, knows about . . . and nobody more ever will know, if I can keep it from ’em. Now, will you stop asking questions, and go down into the town with me, to take potluck?”
“I’ll do it,” agreed the other. He dismounted.
They walked down the last steep slope into the town, side-by-side. They saw the small house grow out of the distance into a larger size. Cows rose out of the slanting, dewy pastures and shook their heads at the interlopers. A young colt jumped up beside its mother and went off with a snort and a squeal.
“Seems kind of peaceful,” said Ranger.
The other replied: “Why, Lefty, don’t you know that this is a sort of a mining camp?”
“Oh,” said Ranger. “That’s what it is, eh? Well, that listens a lot more like it, just now.”
As though just issuing through a doorway, a song exploded upon the open air of the night, a song already in the middle, and sung powerfully by half a dozen voices. The mere melody was not enough for them. They added variations and flourishes, largely in the form of tremendous whoops.
“Yeah, it sounds like a gold town, all right,” said Lefty Bill. “And that sounds like an easy place for a fight to happen.”
“It won’t, though,” insisted Menneval. “Ranger, I’m going to count on you. I’m going to lean on you in every way I can. You’ll have six thousand of my money for doing the first part of your job.”
“I only did half the job,” said Ranger. “I didn’t go back to Alaska.”
“We don’t split hairs when you work for me,” answered Menneval. “You get that six thousand, and another thing . . . if the fight doesn’t take place here between Lyons and young Crosson . . . I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll round out the six and make it a full ten thousand. How does that sound to you?”
“Sound to me?” cried Ranger, and his voice was alive with anticipatory joy. “I’ll tell you what it sounds like to me . . . it sounds like a bit of grazing ground, and some cattle on it, and a shack to live in, and a pair of horses to fork, and me able to sit on my doorstep and thumb my nose at the world as it goes down the road. That’s what it sounds like to me.”
“You’d be willing to work hard and take a chance at that?”
“I’d be willing to die, friend,” said the other with emotion. “Yes, willing to die.”
Menneval held out his hand. They shook. And then Menneval said such a thing as no other human ever had heard from his lips: “Lefty, will you tell me how I feel?”
“You feel pretty good, I guess,” said Ranger. “You mostly do, they say.”
“Lefty, I’ll tell you the truth. I’m scared cold. I’ve got to go on with this business, but I’m covered with an inch of white frost. I’m a lump of ice. There’s no heart in me.”
Ranger gaped at him. Suddenly his mind flashed back to the great white North and the tales of this man who traveled among the mining camps, the snow-besieged towns, and went flickering like fire along the obscure trails. They had attributed all manner of evil to him. They looked upon him as something inevitable, something poisonous. It was no disgrace to flee from Menneval, for the simple reason that they said Menneval would as soon live as die. But other men wanted only to live.
Ranger halted. The horse stopped behind him, with a grunt. Menneval also paused and turned toward his companion.
“Up in Dawson, once,” said Ranger, “there was a fire, and a three-story building went up. While it was burning, a dog ran out on the roof, a no-good little fool of a house pet, and stood there crying and yapping. And you bet five dollars that a man you hated in that watching crowd wouldn’t bring the dog down, and that you would. Is that right?”
“I was a fool in those days,” said Menneval carelessly. “I remember something about that.”
“And you climbed up the side of that house when the wall was rotten with fire, and you got hold of the puppy and brought it back, all for five dollars.”
“Not for five dollars, but to make Jim Torry feel a little sick.”
“You did that, for five dollars. You did a lot of other things. The boys talk about the things you did. They talk about ’em while they sit around in the evening, before turning in, while they’re drinking tea. But now you say that you’re scared?”
“I am. I’m icy. I said so before.”
“Is it young Crosson that you’re scared of?”
Menneval hesitated. “Old-timer,” he said finally, “I hate questions . . . I hate to ask, and I hate to answer ’em. But I’ll tell you that it’s on account of young Crosson that I’m scared. Down here in Shannon is going to be the showdown. That is the place where he’ll be made or broken. He’s come out of the wilderness. When he first meets with other men, there’s likely to be an explosion. And I tell you what I want you to do.”
“Go on,” said the other uneasily.
“I want you to be the damper that keeps the fuse from burning down to the powder. I want you to help keep that explosion from happening. You understand?”
The trapper sighed. “Well,” he said, “I’d rather try to handle a full-grown lion. But I’ll try what I can. Maybe he’s not here in Shannon, after all.”
“Not here? Tut, tut,” Menneval said carelessly. “He’d follow Lyons around the world, and through the world, but Lyons he’ll eventually find in the end . . . and then God help him unless he’s stopped from murder.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When Bill Ranger got into his bed at the hotel, he balanced two great ideas in his mind. One was the thought of ten thousand dollars, and the other was the thought of young Crosson. Between the two he felt that he would never be able to close his eyes, but, as a matter of fact, the fatigue of the strangest day in his life crushed him instantly under a great burden of sleep.
A flare of sun striking from the east through his window wakened him. He got up, took a sponge bath with icy water, shaved, dressed, and went downstairs. He wanted to be a little careful of his appearance while he was in town. In the wilderness, of course, it did not matter, but he was away from the wilderness now. A town of so much as five houses was enough to make him feel more than a little self-conscious. The roughness of his boots, the ragged, patched state of his clothes disturbed him, and he hoped that there were few critical feminine eyes in this town to fall upon him. He blushed at the very prospect.
When he got to the dining room, he was relieved to find that it was already pretty well filled. People who breakfasted at this early hour could not very well be more civilized than he was himself. And it was a great pleasure to see that the serving of his guests was in the hands of a Negro and a Chinaman. No women—there was not a woman in the room.
He managed, also, to get into a chair at a corner of the long table, where he would have his back to the wall and from which he could keep an eye upon the door through which guests entered. There were plenty of reasons for such vigilance. For one thing, Menneval himself might be coming in at any moment. For another, Lyons might appear, if it were true that he had come to Shannon for refuge from the wild man who had hunted him across the mountains. It was true that Lyons was an outlaw, but the law had not reached as far as this little mountain town. Men took care of themselves in this part of the world.
There was not much talk for some time after he entered. There had been a rattle of voices as he came in, and, following this, there was a general pause during which men frowned at their plates and looked askance at him, when they were sure they would not be noticed. People kept their eyes to themselves. A man was supposed to deserve a certain sanctity of privacy until it was proved
that he was beneath such consideration.
Ranger knew what that pause meant. He was being sized up by the others, his outfit and general looks and manner considered, and, according to their approval or disapproval, they would open up general conversation once more or else, the talk would change to quite private mutterings, here and there, barely audible even to the persons who were addressed.
For his own part, he apparently paid no attention to anything but his food. But when he lifted his eyes in reaching for the platter of cornbread, or, when he stretched his hand for the sugar bowl, he allowed his glance to whip rapidly over the faces along the table.
They were such men as live on every frontier. They were the frontier. He had seen the same faces in Canadian lumber camps, far north, in the Alaskan wilderness, in the mountain camps of the mines. And here they were again. He had expected exactly this. He could have sighed with relief to find that he was not mistaken. There might be more cultivated and finer people in the world, but Ranger was used to this type of humanity and he preferred it, just as the rancher can eat bacon and eggs three hundred and sixty-five mornings in the year, or the Scotsman is never dismayed by the appearance of a large bowl of oatmeal porridge.
In this case, the preliminary survey to which he was subjected did not last long. A little down-faced man, whose jowls bulged with what looked like fat but what was really muscle, remarked that it looked like a good day, and he responded that he thought it was and that he was up in Shannon “to look around a little.”
“With a hammer?” said the little man, grinning.
“Yeah, I might chip a rock or two,” Ranger said frankly.
This turned loose the flood of conversation at once. They accepted Ranger as one of themselves.
“You were saying that old Lyons had come to town,” said one of the men.
The man addressed was a red-shirted individual, his entire face blackened and swollen with beard, so that he looked like a man in a mask. He was big. His chest arched out before him. He had the look of a draft horse among men.
“Lyons is here. He’s in this hotel,” he said.
“Come on!” said one. “Lyons wouldn’t be coming into a town. Not where there’s so many guns.”
“All right,” said Red Shirt. “I seen him. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
“Hold on! You seen him?”
“I seen him. What’s more, the girl was with him.”
“What girl?”
“The girl that came out here to see Lyons. The girl that come all the way out from the East.”
“I’ve heard about her. Is Lyons vacationing her up here in Shannon? Showing her the sights?”
“Now,” said Red Shirt, “I ain’t one to gossip, but him and the girl didn’t arrive like they wanted to see sights . . . they arrived like they’d seen plenty. They was both plastered with mud and dust. They had a look like they’d been through a mud storm and a sandstorm. They was all wore down.”
“What could’ve wore down Lyons? He ain’t the kind to wear down. Not even on a grindstone.”
“I’m telling you what I seen. You can make up your own minds.”
“Go on.”
“There ain’t anything to go on about. They got rooms. I was in late, and sat still in the corner of the room and didn’t peep. I seen that something was up.”
“They say the girl is a beauty.”
“She’s all gold and blue, all right,” said Red Shirt, “and don’t you make no mistake. After they got signed in for their rooms and went upstairs, I saunter over to the stable and look things over. There’s two horses in there that’ve been rubbed down and blanketed, but the work they done had started them sweating again. Their knees were trembling. They stood in their stalls with their heads hanging. Not even the barley in the grain boxes could get their eye. They was done in, the two of ’em. And Lyons, he must’ve been done in, too, or he would’ve showed up for breakfast before this time of the day.”
“Shut up,” whispered one of the men.
At this, Ranger looked up toward the door, and in it he saw Nan Lyons standing and her cousin behind her. They paused in the entrance to the room for a moment, and then they came in slowly. Lyons stepped in front of the girl and said to the Chinese waiter: “Sam, put a pair of plates on that little table in the corner, will you? And be lively, boy. Ham and eggs for two. Put three eggs on my plate, and brown them on both sides. You can bring a pot of coffee before the rest of the breakfast.”
Sam was not well trained in the ways of the world, but he knew enough to bow to this superior being until his pigtail flew up over his shoulder. Then he hurried to fill the order. In the meantime, there was not an eye lifted from the main table to scrutinize the two newcomers closely.
A second later, Menneval entered the room and sat down beside Ranger.
Chapter Thirty
Menneval was hardly seated before Lyons got up from the corner table and approached the big one. He paused before Ranger as he nodded to Menneval.
“Will you two gentlemen finish your breakfast at my table?” he asked.
Menneval stood up at once. “Come along, Lefty,” he said. “Bring your things. I’ll carry your coffee for you. Very glad to sit with you, Lyons.”
As they were going across the room, Ranger could feel the sudden outpouring of silent curiosity behind him. There was even a faint rustling, as those whose backs were turned, twisted about to stare. What were the thoughts of the men of Shannon? Why, something was about to happen, to be sure. The arrival of Lyons was enough to fill even a hardy town like Shannon with rumors and murmurs. The coming of the girl with him was sufficient to brim the cup of gossip. But, in addition, Menneval was there. They could not be expected to know who Menneval was, but he had with him the air of a man of consequence. In a crowd of ten thousand, even a child would have been able to pick out Menneval.
They reached the table.
“Nan,” said Lyons, “this is a man I’ve talked to you about. This is Menneval. You’ve seen his friend before.”
Nan stood up and shook hands with Menneval. Then with Ranger. She had a curiously direct way of meeting a glance. And Ranger noted that she bore with her no real signs of fatigue. Her color was fresh, her eye was as clear as the evening sky. But Lyons looked decidedly worn. There were shadows beneath his eyes and an uneasiness about their shifting expression.
They sat down together.
Lyons rested his knuckles on the edge of the table. He looked straight at Menneval.
“Ten years, Menneval,” he said.
“Ten years,” said Menneval. “I’m surprised that you knew me, since that . . .” He stopped.
“Since that little Wells, Fargo business, eh?” said Lyons. “You can talk right out before Nan. I’ve told her everything. And she has come all the way out here to save my soul.” He smiled a twisted smile. “Does your friend, Ranger, know as much about you?” he asked.
“Ranger,” said Menneval quietly, “knows more than that. He knows everything that’s said in Alaska about me. And they talk in Alaska. When an evening lasts six months, there’s need for something to talk about.”
He smiled faintly and, like Lyons, there was a twist of his mouth that suggested that the mirth was only lip-deep.
“Now, then,” said Lyons, “suppose that I cut down to business.”
“Do that,” said Menneval. “Though this isn’t a business trip, with me.”
Lyons looked fixedly at him for a moment. “We’re being honest?” he said.
“I am,” said Menneval.
“I saw Ranger with the Crossons,” said Lyons. “Do you know the Crosson tribe?”
“Yes.”
“I half thought that you did. There’s a strange thing in the air, Menneval, and, when I saw you here, I couldn’t help connecting you with it.”
Again Menneval smiled a little.
“Just what do you know about the Crossons?” asked Lyons.
“Crosson was an old schoolteacher. I met him a long tim
e ago. The boy seems to be a different cut. I don’t know much about him.”
This answer from Menneval caused Lyons to frown a little. “Menneval,” he said, “I’ll tell you a strange thing. Last night I had four good men with me. The sort of men that even you would approve of. We were hunted across the open country by a boy and a wolf pack. The boy was Crosson. The wolves were his pack. He cut off my men, one after another. When I tried to get at him, he melted away into the brush or among the rocks. Finally I couldn’t take any more chances. I had Nan with me. I had to get her to shelter. I brought her here. Now I want to find out about young Crosson. If he’s a madman, I’m through with him. I go on. If he’s sane, I’ll make him pay for the three men of mine he murdered.”
This brief tale caused not the slightest change in Menneval’s expression. He simply said: “Crosson didn’t kill your men. He merely cut them off from you. And what he did to them . . . well, I don’t think they’ll ever ride with you again . . . not if they know that the boy is on your trail.”
“You say that he killed none of them,” said Lyons. “How do you know that?”
“Because I saw the last one of the four.”
“You saw Eddie Hare?”
“That may be his name. His nerve was gone when the boy was through with him. That’s all I know. But not a tooth or a bullet or a knife had touched him.”
Lyons closed both eyes tight. “It’s not possible,” he murmured.
“Cousin Chester,” said the girl, “don’t you think you’ve talked enough about it?”
“She’s afraid that I’m weakening,” said Lyons bitterly. “Perhaps I am. But I’ve never been driven before. Last night I was hunted like a rat. Today is a new day. Menneval, tell me more.”
Menneval looked down at his plate. Food had come. No one had touched it. “Ranger,” said Menneval, “finish your breakfast. Then take Nan Lyons for a walk. I have to talk to Lyons alone for a while.”
Not one more word was spoken among them. Menneval and Lyons, lost in thoughts, ate like people in a dream, hardly knowing what they did. Ranger, as he watched them with side glances, felt, for all that Lyons had gone through, that it was Menneval who seemed to be affected by the greatest emotion. Now and then his lips would compress and a sudden frown darken his forehead. It even appeared to Ranger that the very color of his employer altered from moment to moment.
