by Max Brand
All of these things were incredible, for Menneval was a man of iron and famous for his lack of nerves from Dawson to the sea. But there he sat, as obviously uneasy as a child confronting its first day at school.
Ranger finished his breakfast hastily but, quick though he was, the girl was through before him.
“Be back in an hour,” said Menneval to Ranger.
And the latter went out with the girl.
They went into the good, warm sunshine. The brightness of it dazzled him. The warmth of it relaxed his taut muscles, his taut brain. The girl took off her soft felt hat and swung it in her hand, so that the brightness of the morning flashed on the golden tints of her hair and her unshaded eyes were as blue as blue water. Ranger would have been glad if she had kept that hat on her head. He told her so in another moment.
“You’re worrying a lot about something, Mister Ranger,” she said.
“It’s about your bare head,” he said.
“I won’t catch cold,” she assured him.
“It ain’t you,” said Ranger, “but somebody else is going to get a terrible chill.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He looked askance at her and then up the long, crooked street. It followed the snaky contortions of the creek. “Well,” he said, “there’s all of Shannon up and awake, right now, and getting out into the street. And along you come. Mind you, there likely aren’t more than about three women and a half here in Shannon. It has the look of a man-made town . . . kind of dusty and ragged, you see? And along you come, and . . . and . . .”
He looked down to her, and found her studying him with a faint, grave smile. Her eyes were as clean as a wind-swept sky; she was as simple and direct as any young boy.
“Well?” she prodded.
“Nan,” said Ranger, “ma’am, I mean to say . . .”
“Nan is the right name,” she said. “Go on, Lefty.”
He thanked her with a grin. Suddenly he was at ease. “Your hair will be gold enough and your eye will be blue enough even under the shadow of a hat brim, Nan. Don’t you reckon?”
She put on her hat again without a word. Then she made a gesture that included the dancing light on the waters of the creek, the dark and shaggy forest beyond, the hills, the ragged mountains, the houses up and down the street.
“People are all right, out here,” she said. “The men are all right. They make me feel at home. They’re not like . . .” She stopped at a point difficult of explanation.
“Sure they’re all right,” Ranger broke in hastily. “They’re too much all right.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well,” he explained, “it’s like this. Suppose that you take a young chap that’s said good bye to his folks three, four years ago and since then hasn’t shook hands with anything friendlier than a pick handle or a red-hot forty-foot rope . . . and his Sunday-school time, it’s spent in washing the shirt that he wore all week, or playing poker with a greasy pack, or riding on a half-broke mustang forty miles to get a newspaper . . . suppose you take a young chap like that, he’s just a stick of dynamite with a lightning cap. And the kind of lightning that sets him off is the golden kind, Nan. You follow my drift?”
“Not quite,” she said, frowning.
“I say,” said Ranger, “that these young fellers can fall in love quicker and easier than they can fall out of their saddles, and, when they fall, they hit harder and make more noise and trouble than big guns. They’ll trail a girl across five states and set down on her pa’s front doorstep and scare all the nice boys away. They’ll go mooning and bawling around her like a calf around its ma, when there’s a fence in between. You’ve got the lightning of gold that slides into their brain quicker than moonshine, and easier. That’s why I say . . . keep your hat on your head.”
She settled it more firmly. “Not that I believe a word you say,” she said. “But . . .”
He lost the last of her words, for just then a wild procession dashed past them up the street, whooping, yelling, swinging hats.
Chapter Thirty-One
They were in front of the blacksmith shop just then, and the blacksmith came hurrying into the open double doorway, tongs in one hand and a short-handled eight-pound hammer in the other. Not all of yesterday’s soot had been washed from his face or from his hairy forearms, the tan intensifying rather than diminishing his reddish complexion.
“There goes Winnie Dale,” the blacksmith said. “Oh, Winnie, you’re gonna raise a big wind someday that’ll blow all your boys to perdition and yourself after them!”
There were five men in the procession, which went by in single file, not because that was the natural order but because each man was wringing from his mount all the speed that could be got out of it by whip and spur. At the head of the line, a good distance before the rest, flew a tall youngster whose bandanna fanned out behind his neck and snapped like a flag from a flagstaff. He rode with a very long stirrup. He seemed to be standing, rather than sitting, and the size of him made the horse seem small.
“He can fork a horse,” said Ranger.
“He can fork a horse all right, and he can break a man,” said the blacksmith. “There he goes back to the cattle ranch to play around and pretend that he’s working for another couple of months, and then he’ll roll back into Shannon and blast us loose.”
“Hold on,” said Ranger. “He’s found something to play with up there.”
Winnie Dale had disappeared around the next corner of the street, and now he reappeared, riding in a circle, swinging his hat, sending out piercing Indian yells. One half of his revolution continually carried him out of view.
“Yeah, he’s got some trouble on hand,” said the blacksmith, grinning and yet shaking his head. He added: “Come along and we’ll see what it is. A greaser, most likely.”
“No,” said Ranger. “I’m not going where there’s trouble.”
The blacksmith saw the girl for the first time, and his mouth opened for an instant before he continued. “No,” he agreed. “You’ve got trouble enough on your hands, I guess.” And with this, he hurried up off the street with great strides.
The girl started after him.
“Don’t you go there,” said Ranger. “Don’t you go up there. The crowd’s gathering. Don’t you go up there. You stay here with me.” He caught her arm. It was round, firm, almost hard with muscle. She made no effort to pull free.
She simply said: “I intend to go, Lefty. Don’t you try to keep me here.”
“Well,” he answered, breaking into a sweat, “I don’t like it, Nan. But I ain’t your father, nor your cousin, neither. If you have to go, you have to go.”
They hurried up the street together. Ahead, at the corner, they could still see half the circle that the riders made, for the followers of Winnie Dale had strung out in a line behind him, and every man was swinging a rope and yelling like a fiend in imitation of his employer and master.
“A greaser,” said Ranger.
“They’ve likely got a greaser or a poor Chinaman who is two-thirds scared to death.”
The girl said nothing. Head up, stepping with a good, free swing, she set a pace that made her companion stretch his legs. When they reached the corner, where the dust was flying up under the hoofs of the circling horses, a small crowd was already gathered on the fringe of the circle, and that crowd was growing as fast as running feet could bring more of the curious.
Loudly they laughed; still more loudly arose the yelling of the riders, and then through the dust Ranger had a glimpse of the new victim with whom Winnie Dale was toying. It was neither a Mexican nor a Chinaman, but a young Indian, in appearance, with long, black hair sweeping below the shoulders and held away from the face by a headband. He stood with folded arms and behind him was a cream-colored horse.
The color of the horse opened the eyes of Ranger to guess the truth, and a moment later, through a rift in the dust cloud, he saw clearly.
The girl saw at the same instant. She caug
ht the arm of Ranger. “It’s Oliver Crosson,” she said.
“Yes, it is.” Ranger nodded. “Now the mischief will be to pay. Why in heaven’s name did Winnie Dale have to pick out that dynamite bomb?”
“He’s not even on his horse,” said the girl. “Why doesn’t he get on his horse? He might break through them, then.” Then she added, fiercely: “But I hope he doesn’t. I hope that they rope him and drag him through the street. What else does he deserve?”
The flinging nooses of the ropes, now and then, darted out from the hands of the riders and threatened to catch over the head and shoulders of Crosson, but he would not stir. He kept his eyes seemingly straight to the front, his arms remained folded, and one might have thought that he was unaware of all the turmoil and the dust clouds sweeping around him.
It was not strange that they had picked him out for their game. He looked as wild a human as ever came out of a wilderness of forest or desert. His home-made clothes of deerskin, patched and ragged, his long, sweeping hair, his sun-blackened skin, and, above all, something untamed in his face and his whole bearing made him an outlander in a whole crowd of outlanders. He was a freak among freaks. And Winnie Dale had taken him up for sport.
What would happen? The boy carried a revolver and a knife, as Ranger knew, and, at the first hostile gesture, either the one or the other might come into play. If there was such a gesture made, who could doubt that the young blades with Dale would instantly have their own weapons out? It would be death to Crosson—death to one or more of the others, before they had done with that young wildcat.
“Look,” said the girl, breaking out into instinctive admiration, no matter what reasons she had for hating and fearing this youth. “He’s not a whit afraid. Look at his eyes. They’re straight ahead. See how his lip curls a little. He’s a panther. They’re only house dogs and they don’t know what he is. I never saw such a man. I never saw such a face.”
Ranger hardly heard her. His own heart was not swelling with any reluctant admiration; it was turning to ice, because he felt the overmastering urge of his conscience, driving him on to interfere. What could he do, if he slipped through the circle of the yelling riders, through the rim of the laughing, whooping crowd, and stood at the side of the boy? Yet he felt that his place was there. Perhaps if he merely got in there beside the lad, his presence would make the tormentors relent when they saw that a man of their own kind knew and sympathized with the stranger.
Ranger drew in a quick breath. “Nan,” he said at the ear of the girl, “you get yourself together and go straight back to the hotel.”
“I won’t budge till it’s over,” she replied.
“You’ve got to budge,” said Ranger. “You’ve got to do what I tell you. Your cousin trusted you to me. You’ve got to go back, because I’ve something to do here that maybe might . . .”
“You?” exclaimed Nan Lyons, looking quickly up to him. “You are going to do something here? But what can you do, Lefty?”
He looked desperately about him, in the hopeless chance that he might recognize some face. But all were strange to him. He was alone, in the playing of this hand.
“I can get myself into the same puddle with him,” said Ranger. “That’s all that I can do.” He set his teeth. “Nan, go home,” he said, almost groaning.
Then, straight before him, he saw a gap in the rim of the pressing crowd and a gap, beyond that, between one rider’s horse and the outstretched head of the next. For that gap he raced and got through under the very nose of the animal.
A yell went up from the spectators, from the riders who circled the place as Ranger came to the side of the boy. The latter flashed at him a side glance of utter amazement and of something like admiration, as well.
They could not speak together, for the crowd had broken into an uproar now. There was only time for that single interchange of glances, which meant more than words could have done. And Ranger felt that perhaps he had acted like a madman.
Whatever was to happen, he certainly had precipitated the climax. Winnie Dale had risen still straighter in his stirrups. Daylight showed between him and his saddle. It was as though this touch of opposition had maddened his headstrong young nature. The rope swung faster in his hand, the noose opened a little. Then, with a screech, he cast.
Ranger was watching, but he was watching for the sake of young Crosson, rather than himself. Therefore, he was unprepared to dodge until he saw the thin, shooting shadows of the noose fly just above his own head. Then he started to the side, with an exclamation. He was too late. A throw that even an active-footed calf could not have avoided was much too fast for Ranger to jump clear of in the last fraction of a second. Over his head whipped the noose, and, catching an arm against his body, while the other arm remained free, he was jerked from his feet with violence and skidded into the dust of the street.
This action brought from the watchers and especially the riders a wild uproar of applause, as if it had been a deed of courage and matchless skill. The rougher the jest, the merrier, to the eye of that crowd.
Twice over, Ranger twisted. Then he found his knife and drew it, only to have it knocked flying from his hand as he whirled over a third time. He skidded on his back. The flying heels of a horse seemed about to smash into his face. And rolling his eyes upward, away from this sickening danger, he saw young Crosson leap into action at last.
Now he came across the radius of that circle. He made straight at the running horse of Winnie Dale. No circus performer could have cared to jump at a horse running at such speed, but Oliver Crosson jumped not for the horse but for the man in the saddle. He bounded higher than seemed credible. The force of his leap and the speed of the galloping horse smote him against the rider with an irresistible force, and the saddle was instantly emptied.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The moment that the hand of Winnie Dale was removed from the round turn on the horn of his saddle, the rope flew freely out. Ranger skidded to a halt through the dust, and, rising, half blinded, he saw Dale’s mustang galloping furiously away up the street, and the whole of Dale’s company thrown into the uttermost confusion. The crowd was likewise disturbed.
There was a reason, for straight on under the feet of the onlookers tumbled the bodies of the two, head over heels, until, as Ranger got to his feet, he saw Winnie Dale, practical joker, lying stretched on his back, his arms thrown out crosswise, his face streaked with the blood of a cut that he had received in falling, his body limp as a rag.
Over him rose the form of Oliver Crosson, erect, white with dust in which he had rolled, but smiling, and in one hand he held a revolver, not aimed at any of the members of the Dale band, but in readiness to cover any one of them. And they, in turn, did not put hand to weapon.
It was a very amazing thing to Ranger. In his turn he had drawn his Colt .45, and he hurried to put himself beside young Crosson once more to face the crisis.
But the crisis was gone. There remained some dust flying in the air and the limp body of Winnie Dale upon the ground, but that was all. There would be no further action. He knew it as he glanced at the scowling but uncertain looks of the Dale followers.
And he was not greatly surprised. They had seen themselves holding a pair of men in the hollow of their hands, so to speak. The next instant, at the very moment when Dale began to play his rough joke, the ring had been broken and the strangers were gone.
Not gone, perhaps, but standing side-by-side, armed, in readiness, while their leader lay helpless upon the ground.
The situation was clear to Ranger after the first instant. It was clear to the crowd, also. What an uproar rose from the onlookers. How they shouted and whooped. They called on the Dale band to charge and rescue the fallen leader. They complimented the riders on the jest that had just been consummated. And those miners, cowpunchers, lumbermen, gamblers, wildsters of all sorts, shouted with laughter until the tears ran down their cheeks.
Young Crosson was the last to understand that the action was ended
. He exclaimed to Ranger, without ever taking his eyes from the horsemen before him: “Are they going to back out, Ranger? Do you mean that they’re going to pull clear of this after they’ve started it and got in so deep?”
“They didn’t know the kind of claws you wore,” said Ranger. “That’s all. They didn’t understand, but they’ll never try again.”
“Well,” Crosson said, and sighed, “I suppose that this is the best way with it.”
Yes, actually with a sigh he gave up the prospect of a fight with all of those hardy rangers. He leaned over. He took Winnie Dale by the hair of his head. With the strength of his single arm he raised Winnie to his knees.
“Stand up,” said Crosson.
In all the babbling of the crowd, there was no sound like his voice. It differed from the other noises as, in a host of confusion, the trained ear detects the clang of the rifle bolt driven home.
“Stand up,” Crosson repeated.
And Winnie Dale, reaching his hand vaguely before him, blinking, gasping, more than half stunned, stumbled the rest of the way to his feet. He was taller than Crosson. The result was that, since he was still held by the hair of the head, his head was bent backward a little. He looked like a helpless body about to tumble on its back.
“Get that horse and bring it here,” young Crosson said to Lefty Bill.
One of the Dale men was bringing back the charger from which the leader had fallen. Ranger, understanding, went and took the horse by the bridle. When he brought it up, still the followers of Winnie Dale hung back a little distance. They had seen their master knocked out of the saddle as though by a cannonball, and yet it had been only a human projectile that sent him sprawling. They still hesitated to approach this strange youth, who leaped like a wildcat and struck like a bear.
