The False Rider

by Max Brand

  Duff Gregor took off his hat so that he could show both courtesy and those two spots of gray hair which Christian had, with such care, arranged about his temple. The banker took off his hat, also. He stood up straight. There was an actual reverence in his voice, as he said:

  “Mr. Silver, this is a proud and happy moment!”

  Even if his glory was vicarious, it was the great instant in the life of Duff Gregor.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Value of a Name

  The girl was blushing and smiling and yet looking Gregor straight in the eye in a confidential sort of way, as though she were not in the least ashamed of showing her admiration. She took his hand and gave it a good hard grip also. She said:

  “How happy, happy I am to see you, Jim Silver.”

  Well, that is the way that little children walk up to a big Newfoundland, a picture-book dog, and hang onto its shaggy sides, and throttle it with the grip of their arms, and laugh fearlessly because they know that no harm will come to them. Their trust is perfect. So was the trust which people gave to the name of Jim Silver. And the wretched heart of Duff Gregor suddenly shrank in him and distilled a poison of envy and malice.

  He did not have to struggle to keep from grinning; he had to struggle to smile at all. He told Mr. Wilbur that he would like to talk with him for a few moments, and Wilbur took him instantly by the arm toward his private office. The girl was turning to go home. Over her shoulder she was calling out that there was a batch of trout for lunch, if Jim Silver cared to come to the house and eat with them.

  Gregor could only smile and shake his head, then he was seated with Wilbur in the sanctum. The banker pulled open a drawer and got out a box of cigars. No, Gregor did not smoke them. He rolled a cigarette of fine tobacco, because that was the only thing that the real Jim Silver was known to smoke.

  Wilbur was saying: “Every honest man feels safer when you’re near by, Silver. I’m very glad you’re here, but I’m also a little worried because I know you generally are on the trail of some rascal or other. I hope it’s no big trouble that’s brought you to Crow’s Nest?”

  “The biggest trouble in the world,” said Gregor. “Mr. Wilbur, I’m trying to settle down.”

  He paused. Wilbur, listening, with his head canted to one side, nodded a little. He lighted a cigar. As he puffed, he never moved his respectfully attentive eyes from the face of his guest. He waited for the idea to be developed.

  Gregor went through with the speech which Christian had composed and which he had carefully rehearsed.

  “I’ve had a good deal of the open trail, and a fellow can get tired.”

  “Everybody knows you’ve covered enough trail,” said Wilbur.

  “After all, I’m getting no younger, and in the winter the old wounds ache. I have a few wounds, Mr. Wilbur, and they touch me up when a norther blows.”

  “If you had a thousand for every scar, you’d be a rich man, Silver. I know that,” he said.

  Gregor waved the number of his scars aside. He said: “I’ve decided that I’ll stop hunting for trouble and wait for trouble to hunt me, and that’s why I came here. I’d heard a good deal about Crow’s Nest. It looks like the right sort of a place for me. There’s plenty of clean air, and when I came to the town, I wondered what sort of a job I could find, because I’m almost broke.”

  Wilbur nodded and answered: “I know. You’ve made half a dozen fortunes and always you’ve thrown them away again. I understand that, Silver. Every hand that’s held out to you, you fill. Now do you mean that you want me to find you a job?”

  “That’s the idea,” said Gregor. “I thought you could give me a steer.”

  “You could have anything you want,” said the banker. “Any rancher would be glad to have you as a foreman, not because you know anything about raising cattle, but because the best cowpunchers on the range would come swarming to work under you. Any miner would be glad to have you as a foreman of his mine, or a superintendent, for the same reason. There will probably be no labor troubles wherever you choose to take charge. And as a matter of fact, if you care to lead a lazy life, you could be the lightning rod in this bank.”

  “I could be what?” asked Gregor, pretending that he had not understood.

  “I mean to say,” said the other, “that you could be our watchman—or armed secretary, or sergeant-at-arms, or any other title that you choose to give it. And the minute that it’s known that you are here in charge, every man in the mountains will rush to get his money deposited in my bank. There are plenty of old-timers with fortunes tucked away in secret places because they feel that there’s no safe in the world that can’t be cracked. But there’s not a one of them who doesn’t feel that Jim Silver can be trusted much further than any amount of armor plate.”

  The idea began to grow in the mind of the banker. He got up and took a step or two up and down the room, waving his cigar.

  “It would be one of the best things that ever happened to this bank, Jim Silver, if we could attach you. Your name would attract a whole crowd of depositors. Many another bank will suffer because you’ve chosen to appear in Crow’s Nest, if you care to work for me. But how do you feel about it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gregor, staring down at the floor to conceal his exultation, for this was the very manner in which Christian had said that the fish would rise to the bait. “I’ve never thought of sitting still, with nothing on my mind but hair, as you might say. It would seem a little strange, Mr. Wilbur.”

  “It would be more than sitting still,” declared the banker. “Every one of our new depositors would want to meet you. Every one of them would feel a lot safer about his money after knowing that he had shaken hands with the real Jim Silver. Then, you would want to keep an eye on people who might walk into the bank and plan a hold-up. Those things happen, and with your experience, you know a great number of the crooks throughout the West. No, you’d be busy enough, Jim Silver. You’d be a vast asset to us. Yes, I can foresee that you’d bring in added deposits of hundreds of thousands in a year. By thunder, I might change the name of the place and call it the Jim Silver Bank. Your name would stand for bedrock and Gibraltar with every man on the range!”

  His excitement grew.

  “I’ll be able to pay you a hundred a week just as a starter, Mr. Silver, and more than that as soon as my hopes materialize.”

  The heart of Duff Gregor leaped, but he remembered the careful instructions of Barry Christian, which had been repeated over and over again. Gregor had a feeling that if he went counter to those instructions, Barry Christian would simply kill him out of hand.

  So he answered now, instead of swallowing the bait: “If I’m going to be a watchman, I’ll only want a watchman’s salary. If you’ll give me twelve or fifteen dollars a week, that will be enough. If you could put on my old friend, Thomas Bennett, as night watchman, say, at the same figure, I wouldn’t ask any more. It’s a good thing to have a friend—an old friend in a new town, you know.”

  “Twelve or fifteen a week!” exclaimed Wilbur. “Why, of course, we’ll take on your man. We’ll take on anybody you want, but I’d be ashamed to pay Jim Silver, or even a friend of his, as little as that.”

  Gregor shook his head. “I’ve got only two eyes; I’m not more honest than a lot of other watchmen, and I can’t be worth more pay. Besides, all I need is enough food to eat, and I like my chuck plain. And a couple of beers on Saturday night are enough for me. It isn’t a big salary that I’m looking for. It’s simply a chance to be quiet, Mr. Wilbur.”

  “You’ll have that chance, then,” said the banker. He was flushed with excitement. “I’m going to spread the news as fast as hard riders can take it through the mountains,” he said. “Wait here a moment, Mr. Silver. I’ll be back. I’ve got to have the messages started at once, because there is going to be a golden tide started toward my bank, before the world is a day older.”

  He hurried out and was gone for a few moments. When he came back, he was fairly laughing
with happiness.

  “A dozen men will be hitting the trail with their mustangs inside an hour,” he said, “and every place on the range will have the news inside of a week. After that, the golden flood begins. And you tell me that I can only give you the wages of an ordinary cowpuncher? It’s not fair, Silver!”

  “It’s fair to me,” said Gregor. “Enough is as good as a bale of hay. Let it go at that.”

  “We can argue it over later on,” answered Wilbur. “Now we’ll look over the bank.”

  He took out a bunch of keys and led the way straight to the great safe. It was the one modern feature of the bank, and Gregor looked it over with understanding and rather despairing eyes. This was certainly no job for a “can opener.” This was a case where “soup” would have to be used.

  He photographed that safe with a careful eye and then followed the president of the bank down into the cellar storage rooms, and up again through the main floor, and into the attic.

  Wilbur said: “Your job begins this minute, if you want it to.”

  “I’d better find a shack,” said Gregor. “The best thing for me would be to find a shack where Bennett and I can live; we’ll move out of the hotel and get into quarters where we can cook for ourselves. Thank you, Mr. Wilbur. I hope I can be half as useful as you think.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A Chance Meeting

  Far north of Crow’s Nest, the real Jim Silver came through the mottled and ghostly pallor of a birch wood and stopped at the edge of a stream. It was a silent little creek that seemed to steal along with a finger pressed against its lips. The sun streaked down through the trees and glinted like metal on the thousand upturned edges of the curling bark. That bark was thin as paper. It had a yellow tint in its white, and by that “Arizona Jim” knew it to be the yellow birch. He picked off a leaf. The stem was fuzzy, the leaf coarser and more serrated of edge than the black birch.

  Jim Silver looked up from the water and the trunks of the trees to the lift of the thin branches that seemed to him to be bursting upward and outward, like green fountains. Life rushed up from the ground through those curving lines that never returned to the earth again. Happiness rushed up through the heart of Jim Silver, also.

  He was most of his time among the grays of the desert, the blues and browns of the great mountains, or the perpetual twilight of pine and spruce forests. As he stood in this delicate woodland, he wondered why he did not give more of his life to such surroundings. It was not silent, really. Whenever the wind stirred, it seemed as though an invisible river were streaming across the heavens. And even when the wind did not move, there was always a stealthy approaching noise, though at first this was not audible to ears more attuned to the sounds of the deserts and the iron mountains.

  The stallion stood as quietly as his master. He would have liked to try the taste of some of the tender shoots of the saplings, but the whole air of Jim Silver was one of caution, and, therefore, the horse stood on guard with shining eyes. It was he that gave warning of a possible danger by tossing his head and looking fixedly up the stream. A moment later a canoe slid around the sharp angle of the bend. Silver could hear the gurgling of the water as the paddle blade was driven into it with a short, powerful side stroke, to straighten out the little bark canoe.

  He wondered if the bearded man in the canoe would see him. He stood still, without a word. The paddler worked with leisurely strokes. He seemed to have time for nothing except watching the intricacies of the current, which was full of shiftings in spite of its soundless flow, and yet when he was at a little distance, he called out suddenly, and backed water.

  He grounded the canoe and sprang out. No wonder he had seen the man on the bank, for it seemed to Silver that he had never seen brighter, smaller eyes, more like those of a bird. They were buried deeply in the hairy face. He came striding up the bank with his hand out, a big, burly fellow, laughing with pleasure.

  “Hey, Jim Silver!” he cried. “You taking a vacation out of Crow’s Nest? Don’t go and tell me that you been and given up your job down there, or I’ll tell ’em to fetch my money back to my old bank!”

  Silver looked at him with a quiet concern as he shook hands.

  “I take a vacation once in a while,” he said.

  “And you’re goin’ back, eh?” asked the stranger. “When I heard that Jim Silver had taken a job in the Merchants & Miners Bank that old Henry Wilbur runs, I decided that that was the place for my coin. I ain’t got much, but every thousand looks as big as a whale to a fellow like me. And I says to myself, where would my money rest as safe as in a bank that Jim Silver is around? The minute I heard the news, I made the change—and then, doggone my spots, I find you up here lookin’ at the runnin’ of the creek a whole day’s ride from Crow’s Nest. Yeah, a whole day, even for Parade!”

  He held out his hand toward the muzzle of the stallion, which laid back threatening ears.

  The fellow laughed. “I clean forgot that Parade is likely to be poison to strangers. What we know about Jim Silver makes a gent feel that even his guns and hosses can’t do nothin’ except what’s right!”

  He was full of talk, bubbling with it, yet Jim Silver did not know his name when he stepped again into the canoe and sped it down the stream with long, powerful strokes of the paddle. A twist of the bank took him out of sight, and yet Silver remained there staring at the empty corner of the creek and seeing his own thoughts.

  He was beginning to grow more and more discontented with certain features of his life. He had tried for years to avoid the world, but the world was continually thrusting itself upon him. It was typical that in the rush and pause of existence among these trees he should be rudely given a message that made him turn back on his trail and speed toward Crow’s Nest.

  He had never been in that town; he never had wanted to be in such a crowded place if he could avoid it; but when he learned that “Jim Silver” was working there for a bank, he was alarmed. Nobody could be wearing his name by chance; he could be sure that there was only one “Jim Silver” for everyone on the range. Some rascal, then, had tried to assume his identity.

  He wondered why he had not explained to this unknown man that he had never worked in Crow’s Nest, but his whole nature was against talk and in favor of action.

  Whatever scheme the fellow in Crow’s Nest might have in mind, a vague alarm from a distance would merely serve to frighten him away. And, since the real Jim Silver was only a day from the town, it would be better for him to turn up on the spot and confront the crook face to face.

  It was the sort of danger which he had never conceived. He had been in peril of his life more times than he could count, but hitherto no one had endangered his good name. He turned out of that wood, pulled up the cinches a little tighter, and mounted Parade. The stallion was in perfect trim and ready for a good run. He would have need of all his endurance before his master was through with him this day. The night would pour over the mountains, it would be early the next morning before Jim Silver could possibly reach Crow’s Nest.

  He looked toward the west and saw that the falling sun already was gathering about it a bright halo of the horizon mist. Then he picked up his course, named to his mind’s eye the landmarks which he must follow by day and night, and loosed the reins of Parade.

  It was only a little later than this moment that big Duff Gregor, walking with Ruth Wilbur in the garden behind her father’s house, entirely lost control of himself and “went wrong.”

  There were two troubles in the situation. One was that Duff Gregor was convinced that he had a “way with women”; the other trouble was that the girl had treated him like a brother. Then the garden was more of a forest than its name indicated, and as the sun slanted to the west and the rose and gold of it washed among the trees, Gregor was carried off his feet and away by a stream of romance.

  Ruth had run her hand through the crook of his arm, and side by side they wandered up and down, the girl talking and laughing, and the man growing more and more dizzy.<
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  For one thing, he was glad to be away from the continual surveillance of Barry Christian. For Barry had made him swear to confine himself to the little shack which they had rented on a back alley of the town. Unless Gregor were actually in the bank, he had given his word that he would be in the small house. This day he had broken his promise—and he was unspeakably glad of it.

  He began to see other possibilities of the future. If he were to double-cross Barry Christian, he would be in danger from that outlaw’s guns; but, on the other hand, if he married Ruth Wilbur, he would be on the direct road toward a fortune.

  That was as far as he thought out the problem. He was not doing much thinking, just then. Suddenly, turning on the girl, he stammered out a few confused words and grabbed her in his arms and kissed her, not taking time to note the sudden revulsion of feeling in her eyes.

  She made no outcry. She simply stood like a stone. And then came what seemed the most hateful voice in the world, saying:

  “Jim! Are you crazy?”

  It was Barry Christian, suddenly appearing from among the trees by a small side path.

  Gregor stepped back from the girl far enough to get a bit of perspective in the mind as well as the eye, and he saw that he had made something more than a fool of himself. She had a handkerchief pressed against her mouth, and she was looking at him as though he were a monster out of a strange world.

  He tried to say something more, but as Christian came up the path, the courage and the wits of Gregor both deserted him. He turned and bolted through the brush and got away from those fixed and nightmare eyes of fear. No, he decided that it was not fear so much as disgust.

  That was what kept the cold shudders going up and down his back. She was more horrified than angered or frightened. He would not have minded anger or fear, he thought.

  In the meantime, Barry Christian, coming up the path, had seen how the girl bowed her head and stared down at the ground. She was obviously trying to put together her former ideas of “Jim Silver” and the reality as she had found it.