by Max Brand
He could hardly have left her, but suddenly, from close above them, he heard the clamor of the wolves commence loudly. And that sound washed all concern for other things out of his mind. He left her without a word. He mounted the roan. With quirt and spurs he tortured the gallant little horse forward. But even the mustang stopped.
So Ranger threw himself down, and he rushed forward on foot. He came through high boulders. Before him the outcry of the wolves rang savagely terrible. And then he could see them, in a little flat plateau ringed around with massive stone. They sat in a circle, four monsters, and, pointing their noses at the fiery sky, they loosed their savage wails. They were giving tongue for the kill.
Then Ranger saw the rest. In the very center of the group, fenced in by the wolves, two men lay writhing, twisting, wrestling on the ground.
Why would not Menneval speak? Would he rather die by his son’s hand than let the boy know his true name and their relationship? It curdled Ranger’s blood. It gave him a new and sudden strength to run in.
The battle was ending as he came up. He saw young Oliver twist himself on top, saw his hand jerk suddenly upward with the sheen of a knife in it, flashing like a bit of silver fire.
Then Ranger, with both hands, grasped that poised arm and jerked it back.
The face of Oliver turned toward him, savage as the face of a hunting animal.
“Your father!” screamed Ranger. “Your father! You murderer!”
He had grasped what seemed the body of a writhing snake, a body hot with power, hard as a steel cable. But his shout took the power from that young arm. He was able to drag Oliver away, and he saw Menneval come to his feet and stand there, staggering.
There was a streak of crimson down one side of his face. That was where the stunning power of Oliver’s fist stroke must have gone home. Half blank of eye, aghast, reeling, he stared at Oliver and the boy at him.
Ranger, looking from one to the other, saw one thing in common between them, the intolerable blue brightness of their eyes.
“My father,” said Oliver in a gasping, groaning voice, and he covered his face with his hands.
Menneval drew himself up, took a breath, and with a handkerchief wiped the blood from his cheek. “It’s the whining fool of a schoolmaster. It’s old Crosson,” he said. “He weakened in the end and told. Is that it, Ranger?”
Ranger could make only a sign; he was incapable of speech for the moment. Then he saw the silver-haired man go to the boy and draw down his hands from his face. Almost sternly, almost fiercely he looked at the son.
“Oliver,” he said, “I would rather be dead than to have you know. I wanted you to grow up clean and have your chance in life. I wanted to keep you from weapons and from men until you were fixed and sure of yourself. I wanted you to live and die and never know that Menneval was your father. But the evil one I’ve served all my life has waited for this moment to run a knife into my heart and twist it. I’m your father. Now you know your heritage. The stain is on me, Oliver. I’ve done what you’ll learn from other men before long. I’ve done such things as God Himself could never forgive.”
It seemed to Ranger that the boy was as one rousing out of a long trance. Now he wakened. The knife was still in his hand. He dropped it among the rocks, and, stepping on it, the blade snapped and sprang to a little distance with a shivering, tinkling sound.
Then he said quietly, but in such a voice that Ranger never after could forget it: “I know. Peter Crosson used to speak as if there were a curse on me. But I’ve seen the curse, and it’s no curse at all, but a blessing. You were ready to die for me. I’m ready to live for you. I’m ready to do all I can . . . with my hands empty.”
And he looked down at his hand, from which the knife had just fallen, and Ranger, watching, was suddenly inspired. He knew that no weapon would ever fill the grasp of those fingers again so long as the boy lived.
“Oliver, Oliver,” said Menneval. “If you knew what I have been.” There was a tremor in his voice that struck Ranger to the heart.
“I don’t know,” said Oliver. “I don’t care. To me it’s like being born again, and it’s the first day of life. Well, if I could take your hand and we could say to one another that the old life’s dead and that there’s a new one for both of us . . .”
* * * * *
Ranger found Nan Lyons without even a sprained ankle. She was standing beside her horse, gathering the reins. She started like a guilty thing when he came hurrying, scattering the stones under his blundering feet. She tried to mount, but he stopped her.
“They know you’re here, and they’ll be coming down the hill together in a minute,” he said. “I’ve seen Menneval. Aye, and I won’t say it.”
“You stopped them? You got there in time?” the girl asked anxiously.
“I did, thank God.”
“Thank God,” she said. “But it’s almost dark, and I have to get home.”
“Maybe you’ll be home by a short cut,” said Ranger, smiling. “I’ve got a sort of an idea. Stay quiet. I won’t let you go. When I told young Oliver about you, I could see the lightning of gold hit him all over again.”
And then they came down the side of the mountain together, arm in arm. As they came, suddenly they laughed together and paused, looked at one another without unlocking arms, and then they laughed again.
“There’s a man happy for the first time in his life,” said Ranger.
And suddenly he looked into his own life and wondered—had he ever been happy really? All the riches he had mined for, hoped for—if they were his, could he really be happy? He looked up. The sky was brilliant; it dazzled his eyes with an untold wealth of yellow in the zenith, softening to amber, then to rose and purples that filled all the mountain ravines. There was the wealth there, the impalpable thing, the gold that never could be gathered in the hand. And what was happiness except the knowledge of having served others? He who gives shall receive.
A hand fell on his shoulder, and, looking down, he saw in the little distance Oliver and Nan, close together, she looking up to the boy’s face. But it was Menneval who had touched him.
“Lefty,” he said, “God bless you. What can I ever do for you? For here are three lives that you’ve made happy . . . happy forever. I begin to have a crazy hope. What shall I be able to do for you?”
“Why, there’s nothing you can do for me,” said Ranger. “It’s been done for me. I’ve seen the lightning of gold, and I’ve seen it strike, and that’s enough for me.”
THE END
About the Author
Max Brand is the best-known pen name of Frederick Faust, creator of Dr. Kildare, Destry, and many other fictional characters popular with readers and viewers worldwide. Faust wrote for a variety of audiences in many genres. His enormous output, totaling approximately thirty million words or the equivalent of five hundred thirty ordinary books, covered nearly every field: crime, fantasy, historical romance, espionage, Westerns, science fiction, adventure, animal stories, love, war, and fashionable society, big business and big medicine. Eighty motion pictures have been based on his work along with many radio and television programs. For good measure he also published four volumes of poetry. Perhaps no other author has reached more people in more different ways.
Born in Seattle in 1892, orphaned early, Faust grew up in the rural San Joaquin Valley of California. At Berkeley he became a student rebel and one-man literary movement, contributing prodigiously to all campus publications. Denied a degree because of unconventional conduct, he embarked on a series of adventures culminating in New York City where, after a period of near starvation, he received simultaneous recognition as a serious poet and successful author of fiction. Later, he traveled widely, making his home in New York, then in Florence, and finally in Los Angeles.
Once the United States entered the Second World War, Faust abandoned his lucrative writing career and his work as a screenwriter to serve as a war correspondent with the infantry in Italy, despite his fifty-one years and a
bad heart. He was killed during a night attack on a hilltop village held by the German army. New books based on magazine serials or unpublished manuscripts or restored versions continue to appear so that, alive or dead, he has averaged a new book every four months for seventy-five years. Beyond this, some work by him is newly reprinted every week of every year in one or another format somewhere in the world. A great deal more about this author and his work can be found in The Max Brand Companion (Greenwood Press, 1997) edited by Jon Tuska and Vicki Piekarski. His website is www.MaxBrandOnline.com.
